Ofgem, Great Britain’s National Regulatory Authority (NRA),  has opened an investigation into possible “spoofing” in the GB power market according to articles on the Bloomberg website (here), and Utility Week (here). The investigation has been named “Project Damson”. The activity is alleged to have manipulated the price of spark spread contracts.

The probe adds to the stream of investigations under REMIT across Europe, which in some cases have already led to a fine. The continuing application of REMIT by energy regulators, as well as the onset of MAR, has increased the appetite of many market participants to implement more “effective monitoring” inside their organisations, spanning processes, procedures, surveillance technology, training and suspicious transactor and order reporting. For example, see this recent article on Tabb Forum from a surveillance vendor on the application of MAR.

This investigation is likely to reinforce that trend.