© Anelia Nikolova
KEVR Chairman Ivan Ivanov
The Commission for Energy and Water Regulation (KEVR) imposed a property sanction in the amount of BGN 165,238 on “Energy Supply” EOOD for market manipulation, the press service of the regulator announced.
The company is owned by Sonia Nikolova – Kadieva, whose husband, Georgi Kadiev, is a candidate – MP from the list of “Levitsa” for the elections on April 2.
KEVR has established that between January 1, 2021 and March 31, 2022, the company committed two types of violations – layering of orders (layering) and issuance of false orders (spoofing), on
the “Intraday” market segment of the Bulgarian Independent Energy Exchange.
The press release explained that manipulation by layering and bogus orders occurs when “multiple or large trade orders are placed on one side of the order log, often away from the highest bid and lowest bid” , in order to execute a trade on the other side of the order log. After the trade is executed, the orders are canceled with no intention of being executed.”
KEVR established the violation by applying the indicators of the Guidelines for stratification and fraudulent behavior prepared by the European Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators /ACER/. This is how she found out that “Energy Supply” EOOD issued fictitious sales orders, with which she achieved a short-term reduction in the price of certain products solely for her own benefit. In this way, the company has created an impression among other market participants that the price will continue to fall, which has prompted them to sell electricity to “Energy Supply” EOOD at lower prices than those at which they would trade if it were not for the manipulative behavior . After this unjustified short-term reduction in price, the company canceled its sell orders and actually executed
transactions for the purchase of the achieved lower prices, through which it made an unjustified profit, the regulator’s announcement said.