EDF fined for the first REMIT insider trading breach (CRE, 2022)
CoRDiS fined EDF EUR 500,000 for failing to disclose information about imminent controls on five reactors and using it for two electricity purchases in October 2016. A separate decision fined EDF Trading EUR 50,000 for erroneous day-ahead orders, which ACER said contributed to price spikes on 7 and 8 November 2016.
On this page
The decision
- Authority
- Commission de régulation de l'énergie (CoRDiS) (CRE), France
- Decided
- 25 April 2022
- Participants
- Électricité de France SA; EDF Trading Limited
- Commodity
- Electricity
- Market
- French wholesale electricity market, including the day-ahead market
- Conduct period
- October and November 2016
- REMIT
- Article 3 (Insider trading), Article 4 (Disclosure of inside information), Article 5 (Market manipulation)
- Type of conduct
- Insider tradingErroneous orders
- Penalty
- EUR 500,000 (EDF, Articles 3 and 4) and EUR 50,000 (EDF Trading, Article 5)
- Status
- Final (ACER register, 2026-10-14)
What CoRDiS found
In its decision of 25 April 2022, CoRDiS identified the point at which EDF held inside information: 17 October 2016 at 11:58, when it told the nuclear safety authority, ASN, that it would check steam-generator components at Civaux 1, Fessenheim 1, Gravelines 4 and Tricastin 2 and 4 within three months. CoRDiS found the checks would very probably require those reactors to stop, during an already tight winter market.
The decision records that the information remained non-public until a Challenges article on 18 October at 14:24, followed by ASN's release at 16:30. Before disclosure, at 16:49 and 16:50 on 17 October, EDF instructed EDF Trading to make two electricity purchases for delivery in week 43. CoRDiS found that EDF used the information for those purchases, breaching Article 3, as well as failing to disclose it under Article 4. The published decision redacts the volumes.
What the decision turned on
EDF argued that disclosure was ASN's responsibility while its procedure was still underway and that the information lacked precise dates, duration and consequences. CoRDiS rejected both arguments. It held that a reasonably probable decision can produce precise information before formal adoption, and that EDF's own REMIT duty was not displaced by another authority's publication obligations. The five identified reactors and three-month timetable were sufficient to inform a market participant's assessment.
CoRDiS also rejected the argument that earlier press reports had already disclosed the same information: those reports discussed possible stops at unidentified reactors. It held that a likely significant price effect was enough; CRE did not have to prove an actual EUR 5/MWh movement. EDF's explanation that the purchases continued an earlier position-reduction programme did not rebut the finding that the information was used.
CoRDiS dismissed a separate allegation about EDF's precautionary margin in its forward hedging from July 2016 to January 2017. It found that margin was a commercial strategy based on information available to other informed participants, rather than inside information. The distinction limited the findings to the reactor information and related purchases.
The penalties
CoRDiS imposed EUR 500,000 on EDF. It weighed the short disclosure delay against the scale of five reactors, the stressed market and EDF's experience. It could not quantify the damage or trading benefit precisely. It did not treat EDF's failure to recognise its disclosure duty as mitigation and required publication of the decision.
In the separate EDF Trading decision, ACER reported an acknowledged operational error causing excessive day-ahead purchases and contributing to the price spikes on 7 and 8 November 2016. CoRDiS found the erroneous orders likely to give misleading supply-and-demand signals and imposed EUR 50,000 under Article 5. ACER described the EDF decision as the first sanction for insider trading under REMIT. This separate decision could not be read in full for this review; the account of EDF Trading is limited to ACER's official release.
For a surveillance function
CoRDiS distinguished evolving operational facts from a strategy built on public information. Its reasoning calls for an assessment when a sufficiently specific outage prospect becomes known, rather than waiting for a final external instruction. The separate erroneous-order finding, as ACER explained it, also shows why an operational mistake requires review even without an intention to manipulate.
Sources
- CoRDiS, decision 02-40-18 concerning EDF, 25 April 2022 (Decision, in French)
- CoRDiS, decision 02-40-18 concerning EDF Trading and EDF Trading Markets, 25 April 2022 (Decision, in French)
- ACER, CRE fines EDF for insider trading and EDF Trading for manipulation, 10 May 2022 (ACER release)
- 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.