On January 20, 2025, the Dispute Settlement and Sanctions Committee (CoRDiS) of the French energy regulatory authority (CRE) imposed a €4m ($4.2m) fine on Equinor ASA and an €8m ($8.4m) fine on its trading arm Danske Commodities A/S for manipulating annual capacity auctions at the virtual interconnection point between France and Spain (PIR Pirineos) in 2019 and 2020.

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 decision, CoRDiS found that Danske Commodities A/S, in collusion with Equinor ASA, had booked higher volumes of transmission capacity than those offered in the first round of PRISMA annual gas capacity auctions for PIR Pirineos in July 2019 and July 2020. This was done without the intention of acquiring such capacity, sending false or misleading signals regarding the demand for annual gas transmission capacity from France to Spain via the PIR Pirineos interconnection point.

Multipliers prevented

The investigation revealed that the objective of this behavior was to create market congestion and prevent the application of multipliers to the prices of gas transmission capacities on the infra-annual market, which are meant to incentivize the booking of annual transmission capacities. By placing non-genuine offers in the first round of auctions for annual gas transmission capacity and creating congestion, Danske Commodities A/S and Equinor ASA prevented the application of multipliers, reducing the price of gas transmission capacities on the infra-annual market and setting the market price at an artificial level.

In the press release, CoRDiS said it considers this behavior “a violation of REMIT Article 5”, which prohibits actions that give or are likely to give false or misleading signals about the supply, demand, or price of wholesale energy products, or which secure or are likely to secure the price at an artificial level.

Furthermore, the reservations made by Danske Commodities and Equinor in the disputed auctions must also be regarded as “a concerted action aimed at fixing the price of infra-annual capacities at an artificial level, within the meaning of Article 2(2)(a)(ii) of the said regulation.”

This is the first CoRDiS decision concerning a concerted practice within the meaning of Article 2(2)(a)(ii) of the REMIT Regulation.

ACER said it welcomed this first REMIT decision of 2025 and appreciated CRE’s continued efforts to strengthen market integrity.

Equinor to appeal the fine

Equinor ASA and its energy trading arm Danske Commodities A/S have said they will appeal the fines from CoRDis.

“Market compliance is fundamental in Equinor and we have standards and routines in place to ensure that we comply with regulations and conduct rules in the markets we operate in,” said Irene Rummelhoff, executive vice president for Marketing, Midstream and Processing in Equinor. “We have found no signs of collusion and on that basis we do not agree with the decision from CRE that the alleged collusion took place. We will appeal the decision.”

Equinor maintains that Equinor and Danske Commodities acted independently, and that Equinor booked capacity solely in order to keep access to the Spanish capacity booking platform and therefore ensure access to the Spanish gas market.

Equinor will appeal the case to Conseil d’État, the highest court in France for handling cases involving public administration.