A2A fined EUR 5 million for economic withholding (ARERA, 2026)
ARERA found that A2A offered its combined-cycle gas units into the day-ahead market at prices above their short-run marginal cost, so that capacity which would have been in merit was not dispatched and the zonal price and the PUN cleared higher. It is a detailed published REMIT precedent for economic withholding, and the evidence was a counterfactual re-clearing of the market.
On this page
The decision
- Authority
- Italian Regulatory Authority for Energy, Networks and Environment (ARERA), Italy
- Decided
- 30 July 2026
- Participants
- A2A S.p.A.
- Commodity
- Electricity
- Market
- Italian day-ahead market (MGP), one bidding zone (redacted in the decision)
- Conduct period
- One month of 2022 (redacted in the decision)
- REMIT
- Article 5 (Market manipulation)
- Type of conduct
- Economic withholding
- Penalty
- EUR 5,000,000, the ordinary statutory maximum
- Status
- Appeal possible to the Lombardy Regional Administrative Court within 60 days of notification
What ARERA found
Deliberation 279/2026/S/EEL of 30 July 2026 finds that A2A breached Article 5 of REMIT through the conduct described in Article 2(2)(a)(ii): securing the price of a wholesale energy product at an artificial level. The conduct was the bidding of A2A's combined-cycle (CCGT) units in one bidding zone during one month of 2022. The zone, the month and every quantity are redacted in the published text.
A2A told ARERA at a hearing in February 2024 that it ran its larger CCGT units on working days and offered the smaller ones at prices close to the strike price of the capacity-market contract, roughly the marginal cost of an open-cycle turbine, to keep them in reserve for the system. It argued that the strategy was needed to recover fixed costs, gas transport capacity bookings and maintenance, and that a unit selling even small volumes in the day-ahead market could forfeit better-paid start-up services in the balancing market (MSD).
ARERA rejected those justifications. In the month reviewed, the units' offers were refused in a very large number of hours although their short-run marginal cost, including opportunity cost, was below the market price, and the price rose in hours when A2A's other units were selling at it. The decision holds that whether the participant profited is not an element of this form of manipulation. It also rejects the argument that the capacity market does not cover existing plants' fixed costs: for an existing plant it pays what is needed to stay operational, and a correctly functioning market cannot guarantee fixed-cost recovery to capacity built beyond the optimal mix.
How it was established
ARERA's staff noticed A2A's offer pattern while monitoring the day-ahead market. With the market operator GME, they ran a what-if simulation: they replaced the price A2A offered for each CCGT unit with an estimate of that unit's standard variable cost, wherever the cost was lower, and re-cleared the market with every other participant's offers unchanged.
The difference between the actual and the counterfactual clearing is the measured impact. ARERA treats it as the maximum potential harm attributable to A2A, and notes that if other participants had also been withholding, the effects would not simply add up and A2A's share could be smaller in some hours and zones. That non-additivity was quantified in the decision and judged too small to change the outcome.
What the decision turned on
The fine was set by the effect on the price, not by A2A's own gain. Because withholding lifts the clearing price for every megawatt-hour sold by every participant, ARERA held that the harm to consumers, the price increase multiplied by all the energy bought in the day-ahead market that month, is the measure of gravity. A2A's own extra revenue was counted separately and was not netted against the revenue it gave up by withholding.
ARERA set the fine at the EUR 5 million ordinary maximum. It declined to apply the higher ceiling available under Italian law, citing the particular market context of 2022 and the absence of proof of an intent to manipulate. Neither intent nor profit was needed to establish the breach; both bore only on the size of the fine.
For a surveillance function
The decision makes a generator's offer curve, compared with its own marginal cost, the object of review, and puts the burden of showing a legitimate reason on the participant. A generator's surveillance needs to be able to show, unit by unit and hour by hour, why an offer sat where it did. A counterfactual that re-clears the market without the offer is now a method a regulator has used and defended in a published decision.
Sources
- ARERA, Deliberazione 279/2026/S/eel, 30 July 2026 (Decision, in Italian)
- ACER, overview of REMIT sanction decisions (ACER register)
Sources read on 14 October 2026. This page restates what the authority published and adds no finding of its own. A decision under appeal is not final, and its status may have changed since: check the source before relying on it.