Market participants may choose either to become an RRM themselves or to use one or more third party RRMs to submit transaction reports to the ACER.
The design features of the Registered Reporting Mechanism (RRM) under REMIT Regulation were vague even recently.
It was not certain for instance, whether market participant reporting directly to ACER its own trades is required to register as an RRM or not.
It should be recalled that market participants are already under the obligation to register with national energy regulators (see more on registration requirements) and duplicative registration as an RRM would mean additional burden.
The Agency has recently published te draft TRUM (Trade Reporting User Manual), which clears the ACER's vision for reporting structure for transactions regarding the wholesale energy market products.
The draft TRUM refers to this issue with the following words:
"Market participants' obligations under Article 8(1) of REMIT are to make sure that they have successfully provided their transaction reports to ACER. Market participants and third parties reporting on their behalf must comply with the RRM requirements defined by the Agency. Market participants may choose either to become an RRM themselves or to use one or more third party RRMs to submit transaction reports to the Agency."
So, it appears the the option requiring market participants to become RRMs has prevailed. However, given that market participant may become a RRM if it fulfils the registration requirements for reporting defined by the Agency, it would be of benefit if the requirements on non-third party RRMs were not as onerous as on third party RRMs and were kept to a minimum.
The reporting burden may be eased to some extent since most transactions will be reported to the Agency through an organised market place, which will provide reports for all market participants active on the market place.
Organised market places participants should not, therefore, report any activity they perform on that market place unless they believe that the activity being reported on their behalf is incorrect.
ACER decided, however, that any activity that a market participant is involved in outside of an organised market place, for example OTC or non-standard contracts, should be reported by the participant through an RRM.
The market participant should ensure that the report is submitted only once to the Agency. Overreporting (which may occur when non-reportable contracts are not separated) should also be avoided - such over-reported transactions will typically be rejected by the ACER.
As another key player on the REMIT reporting field appear trade repositories registered by ESMA under EMIR Regulation.
Their role is to be specified yet, a conception exists that such trade repositories should be required to become RRM under REMIT and report derivatives to the ACER in order to ensure consistency.