June 5-6,2014 | Omni Houston Hotel, Houston, TX
We’ve asked the producer of ACI’s upcoming 9th National Forum on Energy Trading Compliance & Regulatory Enforcement to provide us with what she thinks are the two main issues of concern today and going forward in the energy trading industry.
1) Market Manipulation“The reason for this is because market participants and their counsel are still not clear as to what is considered market manipulation. The cases that came out on this subject are adding to the confusion rather than clarifying it. The problem is that market participants are not clear what they need to do to comply and it seems to them that the regulators are saying that they will treat something as market manipulation after they see the conduct of the market participants. Stated in another words, market participants don’t have clear guidance as to what they need to do to comply before any of their practices are called into question by the regulators. The market participants are frustrated to the point that, 1) they are asking regulators if the objective of what they are doing is to maximize fines they are extracting or whether their objective is to coach market participants into compliance; and 2) some of the biggest financial institutions are exiting the energy trading market.”
2) Position Limits“This is of great concern for the Energy Trading community and among some of the chief reasons for that is that the market participants want to know whether or not the hedging exemption will be expanded. Also, if the final rule on position limits does come out, then the industry will want to know what the implementation challenges are, in particular, to detailed forms that will be needed. More specifically, the industry will want to understand, when to fill out which form, what information is needed on which form, what are the consequences if forms are not completed in time, which actions trigger the need for which forms, as well as what other implementation traps might exist? In addition, if the final rule does not come out soon, then the market participants will want to understand what the thinking is on best practice for advocacy at this stage of the process.”