What the suppliers say
A whistle-blower has alleged that energy companies have been manipulating wholesale gas prices. The FSA and Ofgem are investigating, but what do the energy companies themselves have to say?
Centrica (British Gas Business) – “Centrica has very robust governance and compliance policies, which regulate its market participation and behaviour. These policies are reviewed on a regular basis. Centrica’s traders are prohibited from providing price information to price reporting agencies. It’s important to stress that the wholesale gas market has more than 50 participants, not just energy supply companies, handling hundreds of trades every day. It is in everyone’s interests that there is a well-functioning and orderly wholesale energy market.”
EDF Energy – “EDF Energy does not participate in loss-leading trading activity and considers it to be against existing market regulation. We make information likely to impact market price formation publicly available on our website in compliance with REMIT.”
E.ON – “E.ON have in place some of the most stringent training and compliance regimes in the industry and are confident that all of our colleagues always act in the correct manner and as a company we fully abide by all appropriate regulations such as REMIT. We expect the same from all other market participants and consider any attempt to manipulate benchmarks or market prices as illegal.”
nPower – “nPower were not involved in any of the trades which we understand are under investigation. We confirm that we have robust compliance procedures in place – it is an explicit commitment within RWE’s Code of Conduct that we will comply with all laws and regulations. Every trade that we make and every transactional conversation is recorded. We comply with all European transparency regulations. Customers need to trust suppliers and be able to trust the energy markets. RWE is engaged in action to support transparency and liquidity in the markets. We need transparent markets to encourage the investment the UK needs. We would be happy to support any regulatory investigation.”
Scottish Power – “Scottish Power has never engaged in trying to fix wholesale gas trading markets. Our trading division always acts with integrity and follows all rules in all of its engagements with the market.”
Scottish & Southern Energy (SSE) – “We are entirely confident that our energy portfolio management team operate in a fair and legitimate way.”