Erroneous orders and fat-finger trades under REMIT
Market manipulation under REMIT does not require intent. An order entered by mistake that sends a false signal about supply, demand or price can be a breach, and how the participant handles the error afterwards shapes the outcome.
On this page
The definition
ACER lists erroneous orders among the practices of market manipulation: unintentionally placing orders or entering into transactions that send false or misleading signals regarding supply, demand or price. Its Guidance is explicit that whether the behaviour is intentional is irrelevant to whether it is market manipulation under Article 2(2), so a mere erroneous trading activity can end up being manipulative.
“Whether the behaviour is intentional or not is irrelevant to qualify it as a breach of Article 5 of REMIT in the form of 'market manipulation'. As a result, a mere erroneous trading activity can end up being manipulative.”
What decided the outcomes
The handling after the error separates the cases. Vattenfall notified the market, stayed out of the following markets until it had, and tightened its checks; RME found a breach but imposed no fine. Energi Danmark corrected an erroneous position in the next auction without telling the market first; RME found market manipulation, insider trading and a disclosure failure, and fined it NOK 7.5 million. Eneco noticed a price ten times too high during a gas balancing action and told nobody; it repaid EUR 2.4 million under commitments to the ACM.
An erroneous position is also inside information: the participant knows a correction is coming and the market does not. That is why Energi Danmark's correction was insider trading as well as manipulation.
What a procedure needs
Detect the error, cancel where possible, publish an urgent market message before trading again, and record what happened. Under REMIT II, a participant trading algorithmically must have controls that prevent the sending of erroneous orders (Article 5a).
Decisions
- Vattenfall's erroneous NO2 order: a breach with no fine (RME, 2025)Norway · Published 27 February 2025 · Electricity
- Energi Danmark fined NOK 7.5 million for erroneous trades (RME, 2024)Norway · Published 9 December 2024 · Electricity
- Eneco repays EUR 2.4 million over an uncorrected fat-finger orderNetherlands · Published 3 August 2023 · Gas
- EDF fined for the first REMIT insider trading breach (CRE, 2022)France · Decided 25 April 2022 · Electricity
Sources
- ACER, Guidance on the application of REMIT, 6.1st edition, 18 December 2024 (Guidance)
- Regulation (EU) No 1227/2011 (REMIT), consolidated text including Regulation (EU) 2024/1106 (Regulation)
Sources read on 15 October 2026. This guide summarises the regulation and ACER’s non-binding guidance for orientation; it is not legal advice, and the decisions it cites are the deciding authorities’ findings, some of them under appeal.