Wash trades and pre-arranged trading under REMIT
A wash trade changes nothing about who holds the energy, but it prints a price and a volume the market reads as real. Pre-arranged trading does the same between parties acting together. Both are among the most frequently sanctioned practices in the REMIT record.
On this page
The definitions
ACER lists both among the practices that give false or misleading signals or secure an artificial price. A wash trade is a purchase or sale with no change in beneficial interest or market risk, or where they pass between parties acting in concert or collusion. Pre-arranged trading is a purchase or sale where the transfer of beneficial interest or market risk is only between parties acting in concert or collusion.
ACER notes that sleeve transactions are not manipulative per se, but must be assessed like any other transaction under Article 5. Its Guidance Note 1/2017 of 19 June 2017 covers wash trades in detail.
“Wash trades: entering into arrangements for the sale or purchase of a wholesale energy product where there is no change in beneficial interests or market risk, or where beneficial interest or market risk is transferred between parties who are acting in concert or collusion.”
The patterns in the decisions
ANRE's January 2024 decisions classified trades on OPCOM's bilateral contracts platform as A-B-A wash trades: a position leaves one participant and returns to it through a counterparty. Its March 2024 decisions treated a separate set as pre-arranged trading. EWRC sanctioned trades on the Bulgarian exchange's intraday segment between two companies acting by prior agreement, at prices well away from the market.
A cross-border variant is self-trading across an interconnector, which consumes cross-zonal capacity exactly as a real cross-border trade does: the Danish decisions against Energi Danmark treat it as capacity hoarding.
What can explain it innocently
Intra-group transfers, portfolio rebalancing and sleeves for a counterparty that cannot trade directly all involve trades between related parties. What separates them from a wash is whether risk actually moves and whether the price and volume printed could mislead others about supply, demand or price. A documented commercial purpose for each leg is the first thing a review looks for.
What a review asks
Whether the same position returns to its origin within a short period, through how many counterparties, at prices away from the prevailing market, and whether the printed trades feed a reference price or an index that others rely on. Two trades were enough for several of the ANRE decisions.
Decisions
- Toplofikacia Sofia and Energy Market fined for pre-arranged tradesBulgaria · Decided 18 March 2026 · Electricity
- ANRE fines three traders for pre-arranged trades on OPCOM (2024)Romania · Decided 29 March 2024 · Electricity
- ANRE fines four traders RON 537 million for wash trades (2024)Romania · Decided 19 January 2024 · Electricity
Sources
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.