REMIT breaches: Spanish energy regulator fines Gesternova S.A. €6 million and Axpo Iberia €1.5 million for electricity market manipulation

The Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y la Competencia (CNMC) has imposed a €6 million fine on GESTERNOVA S.A. and a €1.5 million fine on AXPO IBERIA for manipulating the Spanish electricity market between 30 September and 30 December 2022.

These penalties come under the REMIT Regulation (EU) No 1227/2011, which prohibits market manipulation and seeks to protect the integrity and transparency of the EU’s wholesale energy markets.

In its decisions, CNMC found that GESTERNOVA S.A. and AXPO IBERIA had breached Article 5 of REMIT by manipulating the continuous intraday market by:

• Giving false or misleading signals regarding the supply of wholesale energy products, through behaviour known as ‘quote stuffing’.
• Issuing (and also withdrawing in AXPO IBERIA’s case) non-genuine orders to be in an advantageous position to execute cross-border sales with France.

CNMC’s investigation revealed that GESTERNOVA S.A. and AXPO IBERIA, in multiple sessions of this period, issued (or also withdrew in AXPO IBERIA’s case) non-genuine sell orders by using algorithmic trading with the goal of monopolising the order book queue for the D+1 product. Their behaviour blocked other market participants’ orders from being accepted in the order queue. Consequently, at the start of the trading session, one or more of GESTERNOVA S.A.’s and AXPO IBERIA's sell orders were prioritised at the top of the order book, ready to be the first matched once additional capacity would become available at the interconnection with France.

CNMC consider the behaviour as “quote stuffing” (defined in 6.1st edition of ACER REMIT Guidance as entering a large number of orders to trade and/or cancellations and/or updates to orders to trade so as to create uncertainty for other participants, slowing down their process, and/or to camouflage one’s own strategy).

ACER welcomes the rigour of CNMC’s enforcement with these third and fourth CNMC market manipulation decisions this year.

Access the GESTERNOVA Decision and AXPO Decision, together with CNMC’s GESTERNOVA press release and AXPO press release (both in Spanish).

Check the ACER REMIT Guidance (6.1st edition) for more information on the types of trading practices which could constitute market manipulation under REMIT.

Interested in further information on enforcement decisions under REMIT? Check out ACER’s REMIT Quarterly reports.

Check out ACER latest guidance on REMIT and LNG data reporting, updated in December 2024 to align them with the revised REMIT Regulation.