What to Know
- US energy and commodity traders operating in the EU and UK must meet more formalized registration, reporting and senior management accountability standards than their domestic framework requires.
- The EU and UK Regulations on Wholesale Energy Market Integrity and Transparency (REMIT) set out specific categories of prohibited conduct in wholesale energy markets — including attempted insider dealing and market manipulation — that go beyond the US principles-based approach.
- The UK’s Senior Managers and Certification Regime imposes more prescriptive individual accountability standards than US or EU rules, and the Crime and Policing Act 2026, enacted in April, extends the senior manager test to all crimes.
Following Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and the consequent, far-reaching bans on Russian oil and gas, the European Union (“EU”) and the United Kingdom (“UK”) have come to rely increasingly on imports of energy products from other jurisdictions, including the United States (“U.S.”).² That shift in trade flows carries a compliance consequence that U.S. commodity traders operating in the EU and UK cannot afford to overlook: the conduct and compliance standards imposed on energy market participants (“MPs”) in the EU and UK are materially more prescriptive, and in certain respects more demanding, than those that U.S. traders are accustomed to at home.
This article examines the U.S., EU, and UK frameworks for market abuse and market conduct obligations, compares the compliance standards imposed on MPs in each jurisdiction, and identifies the most important practical implications for U.S. firms active or looking to become active in European energy markets. The central takeaway is that U.S. regulation provides the floor, not the ceiling: U.S. MPs operating in the EU and UK must be prepared to meet a higher standard of formalized registration, reporting, and senior management accountability than their domestic frameworks require.
I. Overview of Market Integrity Rules and Regulatory Authorities
a. The U.S.
The integrity of trading in energy and energy-related commodities in the U.S. is safeguarded through a layered, principles-based framework. At its core is the Commodity Exchange Act (“CEA”), governing futures, options, and swaps on energy commodities, supplemented by implementing regulations of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) and venue-specific conduct rules enforced by exchanges such as the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (“CME”) and the Inter Continental Exchange (“ICE”). For physical wholesale transactions, such as the sale of electricity and the interstate transportation and sale of natural gas, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”) exercises jurisdiction under the Federal Power Act (“FPA”) and Natural Gas Act (“NGA”). These statutes do not define “wholesale energy products” as a single category; rather, they regulate wholesale sales of electricity and natural gas in interstate commerce and associated transmission