Market Abuse Regulations – US Versus EU

In the United States, the following three pieces of regulation contain anti-market abuse provisions that are relevant to commodity or energy markets:

  • the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) of 1936
  • the Energy Policy Act (EPA) of 2005, and
  • the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) of 2007.

Besides, the anti-abuse provisions of the the Commodity Exchange Act were greatly expanded by the Dodd-Frank Act (officially titled “Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act”) of 2010. The regulatory packages bring along prohibitions and obligations for commodity and energy market participants. For each act specifically there is a relevant regulatory authority to supervise whether parties comply with the rules.

In the European Union, the following two pieces of regulation contain anti-market abuse provisions that are relevant to commodity or energy markets:

  • the Market Abuse Regulation (MAR), and
  • the Regulation on wholesale Energy Market Integrity and Transparency (REMIT)

National and European regulatory bodies supervise the markets from this perspective.