The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) said on Thursday an Administrative Law Judge will determine whether units and traders at French energy company Total, now TotalEnergies SE TTEF.PA, manipulated the natural gas market in 2009-2012.
The case, which has dragged on for years, is the biggest of FERC’s ongoing disputes over alleged power and gas market manipulation, some of which started over a decade ago.
Officials at TotalEnergies were not immediately available for comment.
In 2015, FERC alleged Total made intentionally losing trades – known as “uneconomic” trading – in order to affect index prices in the U.S. Southwest on at least 38 occasions between June 2009 and June 2012. Those losses would be offset by larger gains on other related positions, FERC said.
It was one of a series of so-called “loss leader” or leveraged trading strategies that FERC has pursued over the past decade where traders lose money in one market to benefit larger positions in a benchmark or other financial index.
Other similar cases involved units of JPMorgan Chase & Co JPM.N, which paid a $285 million fine in 2013, Barclays PLC BARC.L, which paid a $70 million fine in 2017, and BP PLC BP.L, which paid about $24 million this year but was still challenging the fine.
FERC issued a show cause order on April 28, 2016, directing Total Gas & Power North America to explain why it should not pay civil penalties of $213.6 million and disgorge $9.2 million in unjust profits, plus interest, resulting from the alleged manipulation.
The order also directed gas traders Aaron Hall and Therese Tran to explain why they should not pay civil penalties of $1 million and $2 million, respectively.
Total agreed to pay $3.6 million to settle similar charges of alleged manipulation by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission in 2015.
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