ANRE fines three traders for pre-arranged trades on OPCOM (2024)
ANRE found that Energy Republic Trading, QMB Energ and Land Power engaged in pre-arranged wash trading on OPCOM's PC-OTC platform through four Energy Republic Trading transactions with the other two companies, and fined the three companies RON 18,005,844.47 in total, calculated on turnover.
On this page
The decision
- Authority
- Romanian Energy Regulatory Authority (ANRE), Romania
- Decided
- 29 March 2024
- Participants
- Energy Republic Trading S.R.L.; Land Power S.R.L.; QMB Energ S.R.L.
- Commodity
- Electricity
- Market
- OPCOM centralised market for bilateral contracts with continuous double negotiation (PC-OTC)
- Conduct period
- Not stated in the release
- REMIT
- Article 5 (Market manipulation)
- Type of conduct
- Pre-arranged tradesWash trades
- Penalty
- RON 18,005,844.47 in total: Land Power RON 7,736,057.20, Energy Republic Trading RON 6,336,705.37, QMB Energ RON 3,933,081.90
- Status
- Appealed (ACER register, 2026-10-14)
What ANRE found
ANRE's regulatory committee unanimously approved the sanctions on 29 March 2024. ANRE's communique, published on 15 April 2024, says the measure followed investigative work opened on a referral from OPCOM through ACER's notification platform. The three companies were fined for breaching Article 5 of REMIT, read with Article 2(2)(a)(i) and (ii), that is, transactions giving false or misleading signals and securing the price at an artificial level.
The trades were on the centralised market for bilateral electricity contracts with continuous double negotiation (PC-OTC), run by OPCOM. ANRE found that Energy Republic Trading, through four transactions with Land Power and QMB Energ, engaged in market manipulation. QMB Energ was found to have done so through three transactions with Energy Republic Trading, and Land Power through one transaction with Energy Republic Trading. ANRE placed the transactions in the sub-category of wash trades it calls pre-arranged trading.
The penalty
Three decisions of the President of ANRE, all dated 29 March 2024 and based on the committee's unanimous vote, closed the investigations. Decision 617 fined Energy Republic Trading RON 6,336,705.37. Decision 618 fined QMB Energ RON 3,933,081.90. Decision 619 fined Land Power RON 7,736,057.20. The total is RON 18,005,844.47.
The communique describes the fines as contravention fines calculated on turnover. Land Power, with a single transaction identified, received the largest of the three. It does not give the percentage, the dates or volumes of the trades, or ANRE's reasoning on how it concluded that the trades were arranged in advance. The fines go in full to the state budget.
This account rests on ANRE's communique. The underlying three decisions were not located for this review, and the release does not provide their full reasoning or the companies' responses.
For a surveillance function
The decisions rest on trades between a small group of licensed counterparties, with one firm on every trade. ANRE's reference to both Article 2(2)(a)(i) and (ii) shows that it treated pre-arranged trading as capable of both misleading the market about supply, demand or price and fixing the price artificially. A firm trading bilaterally should be able to show that each trade with a repeat counterparty was commercially independent.
Sources
- ANRE, communique on investigation actions (Decisions 617-619), 15 April 2024 (Press release, in Romanian)
- ACER, overview of REMIT sanction decisions (ACER register)
Sources read on 27 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.