What Is It About?
ESMA’s 2024 sanctions report details enforcement actions across EU financial regulations, spotlighting Market Abuse Regulation (MAR) and MiFID II/MiFIR. It records 975 sanctions totaling over EUR 100 million in fines, and highlights increased scrutiny of algorithmic trading controls and market abuse, particularly under the respective MiFID and MAR frameworks.
The report outlines the growing EU regulatory focus on governance, market integrity, and algorithmic trading controls. While energy and commodity firms saw no direct fines, parallels with REMIT II mean these sectors must align surveillance and governance standards with MAR and MiFID expectations to pre-empt future enforcement exposure.
MAR and MiFID remain core enforcement areas across the EU, with France and Germany leading in fines. Algorithmic trading controls, insider information governance, and market manipulation remain top risks. Energy and commodity traders should benchmark controls—especially for algo trading—against MiFID/REMIT II standards to ensure robust compliance readiness.
The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the EU financial market regulator and supervisor, published its second consolidated report on sanctions and measures imposed across EU Member States on the regulations it oversees (click here). The report includes a detailed Annex of each regulation and statistics related to sanctions and measures enforced across each.
We review ESMA’s report in further detail providing extracts of visual representations of fines across the most active regulations (MAR and MiFID) and we perform a deep dive on one enforcement decision under MiFID related to algo trading controls and the parallel implications for energy and commodity firms.
The Market Abuse Regulation (MAR) and MiFID regulations were the largest concentration of sanctions/measures. ESMA reported 975 administrative sanctions/measures in 2024, with EUR 100.2m in administrative fines (615 fines in total) concentrated in MAR (EUR 45.5m) and MiFID II/MiFIR (EUR 44.5m). Criminal fines (where Member States choose criminal tracks) notably appear under MAR (EUR 72.2m).
While Securities Financing Transactions Regulation (SFTR) and Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) saw no administrative sanctions in 2024, enforcement under EMIR continued albeit at both lower volumes and sanction values.
ESMA provided a comparison of its 2024 fines compared to USA and UK fines issued in 2024 noting:
"In comparison, in 2024, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission obtained orders for more than USD 8.2 billion in financial remedies, the highest amount in their history (click here) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission issued a record monetary relief of over USD 17.1 billion in civil monetary penalties, restitution and disgorgement (click here). Moreover, the total amount of fines issued in 2024 by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the United Kingdom was approximately EUR 206,626,000 (GBP 176,045,385) (click here)"
How does the ESMA report tie back to energy and commodity trading?
For both MAR and MiFID, there were no enforcements directly attributable to energy and commodity trading firms. The 2024 cases that are publicly documented involve banks, funds, issuers, and individuals. Thematically, however, these actions constitute signals from the EU regulators on the types of investigations and enforcements they are pursuing which energy and commodity firms should take note of. Specifically:
MAR: The MAR enforcements primarily focused on Article 14 [Prohibition of insider dealing and of unlawful disclosure of inside information], Article 15 [Prohibition of market manipulation], Article 17(1) [Public disclosure of inside information], and Article 19(1) [Managers’ transactions].
Implications for energy and commodity firms: While no MAR fines were issued across the EU to firms in the energy or commodity trading sector, firms that trade commodity or financial exchange-traded derivatives in the EU must adhere to surveilling both the physical and financial information flows in their organisations, as well as related insider information disclosure governance.
Firms trading in EU wholesale energy derivatives will already be very aware of the surveillance and governance requirements associated with monitoring the disclosure of inside information and, more broadly, abusive behaviours such as spoofing and layering under REMIT. Many of the governance and surveillance monitoring requirements under REMIT overlap with MAR, thus firms should ensure that any trading outside of EU wholesale energy derivative products are covered by similar governance principals to their REMIT portfolio while also overlaying additional requirements included under MAR.
MiFID II/MiFIR: Both MiFID sanction counts and values were grouped around Articles 16 and 24 (organisational requirements and client information respectively) however the highest settlement fine was issued in Germany by BaFin, the national competent authority (NCA), to Citigroup (click here) for EUR 12.975m for violations to Article 17(1) algorithmic trading controls.
Implications for energy and commodity firms: Energy and commodity firms using algorithmic trading in energy or commodity derivatives should take note that regulators are monitoring and enforcing violations related to weak algo trading controls and should expect this to remain a focus for regulators. While many energy and commodity firms are not regulated and do not fall directly under MiFID algo trading rules, firms should take the opportunity to benchmark controls across their algorithm lifecycle with current MiFID algo governance requirements.
Firms trading in EU wholesale energy derivatives will be aware of recent REMIT II requirements on the mandatory documentation of algo trading governance and controls. For further background, readers can view this guidance the Dutch energy regulator (ACM) which also published a market study in July 2024 on algo trading and governance requirements in wholesale energy markets (see here). In a more recent analysis, PwC Germany, a consulting firm, and PowerBot, an algo trading software provider, published a joint report on the evolution of algo trading in short-term power markets and the associated relationship between REMIT and MiFID (see here)
We review and summarise MAR and MiFID statistics in further detail and analyse the Citigroup algo trading enforcement decision issued by BaFIN in June 2024 and potential learnings for energy and commodity firms.
MAR and MiFID sanction enforcement overview
Across all the breaches of the various sectoral acts covered by this report, the highest aggregate amount of administrative fines relates to the violation of Article 15 of the MAR, regarding market manipulation. The bulk of the fines were issued in France (EUR 19,120,000 in aggregate across 17 administrative fines under Article 15) and represent around 65% of the total amount of administrative fines issued by France in 2024.
The highest single amount issued by settlement under the MAR in 2024 was imposed in Ireland by the Central Bank of Ireland for EUR 1,225,000 (click here) to a stockbroker who breached Article 16(2) of MAR by failing to put in place an effective trade surveillance framework to monitor, detect and report suspicious orders and transactions in relation to market abuse.
Zooming out - settlements were most common in MAR and MiFID II/MiFIR cases. Under MAR, regulators closed 45 matters by settlement (about 12% of all MAR sanctions in 2024). Under MiFID II/MiFIR, there were 31 settlements representing roughly 11% of total sanctions and measures issued under this regulatory regime. Germany issued the highest number of settlement with 26 (23 under MAR), followed by Bulgaria with 20 (17 under MiFID II/MiFIR).
On penalty size, the MAR story was steady year over year: EUR 45,946,421 in 2023 versus EUR 45,507,168 in 2024. MiFID II/MiFIR told a different story, jumping from EUR 18,258,028 in 2023 to EUR 44,498,264 in 2024, a surge helped by the nearly EUR 13 million BaFin fine issued to Citigroup.
In 2024, regulators issued administrative sanctions and measures across fewer Member States overall than in 2023 however MAR was the outlier. Its footprint expanded with actions in 24 Member States in 2024 versus 22 in 2023.
What is the definition of an administrative fine via settlement procedures?
These are a subset of fines where the procedure to reach the outcome was a settlement/accelerated route (typically an agreed resolution that can affect the amount and timing of the fine). In 2024, 94 of 975 outcomes (~10%) were issued using settlement procedures, mainly under MAR and MiFID II/MiFIR.
Several visual graphs provided by ESMA further illustrate the spread of fines across regulation and jurisdiction.
Total Amount of Administrative Fines by Regulation
Total Value of Administrative Fines by EU Country
Total Number of Sanctions and Measures by Regulation
Total Number of Settlements by NCA by Country
Annex 4.5 MAR and Annex 4.6 MiFID/MiFIR provide further information which we consolidate and present below.
Annex 4.5 - MAR
In 2024, 377 administrative sanctions and measures were issued under MAR in 24 Member States. Italy imposed the highest number of administrative sanctions and measures (80) followed by Sweden (48).
Total Amount of MAR Administrative Fines by Country
The total value of the administrative fines imposed in 2024 amounted to EUR 45,507,168. Of these, an aggregate value of EUR 3,316,419 (7%) was imposed via settlement procedures.
The highest administrative aggregate fines under the MAR were imposed in France (EUR 20,655,000), followed by Poland (EUR 4,032,761) and Norway (EUR 3,824,297).
The administrative sanctions and measures were mainly imposed for infringements of Article 14 of the MAR (regarding insider dealing and unlawful disclosure of inside information), Article 15 (regarding market manipulation), Article 17(1) (on the public disclosure of inside information), and Article 19(1) (regarding managers’ transactions).
MAR fines by Article
During this period, the total value of criminal fines imposed for infringements of the MAR amounted to EUR 72,246,679. During this period, Germany imposed the highest aggregate amount of criminal fines, EUR 71 369 238, which were imposed for infringements of Article 14 of the MAR, regarding insider dealing and unlawful disclosure of inside information, and Article 15, regarding market manipulation.
MAR Criminal Sanctions by Country
MiFID/MiFIR
In 2024, 294 administrative sanctions and measures were issued in 20 Member States under MiFID II and MiFIR. Greece imposed the highest number of administrative sanctions and measures (84), followed by Hungary (49) and Romania (30).
MiFID Fines by Country
In 2024, the highest administrative fine, amounting to EUR 12,975,000, was issued in Germany via settlement for breaches of Article 17(1) of MiFID II, regarding controls in relation to algorithmic trading. We review this enforcement in further detail below.
MiFID Fines by Year
Based on the data reported, most administrative sanctions and measures were imposed under Articles 16 and 24 of MiFID II, regarding organisational requirements, and general principles and information to clients, respectively.
MiFID Fines by Article
MiFID Enforcement deep dive – Algo Trading Controls in the spotlight
Germany issued the highest administrative fine in 2024 (click here), via a settlement procedure (EUR 12,975, 000, which represents around 80% of the total amount of administrative fines issued by Germany in 2024), to Citigroup for the violation of Article 17(1) of MiFID II, regarding controls in relation to algorithmic trading.
Background
On 24 May 2024, BaFin imposed an administrative fine of €12.975 million on Citigroup Global Markets Europe AG (CGME) for breaches linked to algorithmic trading systems and controls under German law transposing MiFID II Article 17 (algorithmic trading).
Public summaries, which are customarily light on detail, explain that CGME’s monitoring/management system for algorithmic trading had been outsourced to Citigroup Global Markets Limited (London) and failed to detect a manual input error (“fat-finger”) by a trader in May 2022, resulting in erroneous orders and market disruption.
The UK’s FCA also fined Citigroup for related violations (click here).
Implications for energy and commodity firms.
REMIT II (Regulation (EU) 2024/1106, 11 April 2024) amends REMIT to address the rise of algorithmic and high-frequency trading in wholesale energy markets and aims to align REMIT with financial-markets standards. The recitals state that trading technology is increasingly used and that its risks must be addressed in REMIT.
The new Article 5a - “Algorithmic trading” inserted into REMIT II establishes MiFID-like obligations for energy market participants engaging in algo or high frequency trading in power and gas markets including:
It is notable however that the Level 1 text of REMIT II does not mandate Level 2 regulatory technical standards akin to RTS 6 of MiFID II. This has made the proper legal alignment between REMIT and MiFID challenging. Many firms have opted to apply, where feasible, the practices mandated under RTS 6 for algo trading in wholesale energy products. Governance and control frameworks are still evolving in this respect.
'Fat Fingering’. Specifically on the topic of ‘fat fingering’, there are recent REMIT related cases that provide insights to NRAs oversight and potential implications. Specifically, the Norwegian energy regulator, NVE-RME, announced in February 2025 (click here) an enforcement action against Vattenfall for an erroneous trading incident (i.e. a ”fat finger” trade) in the Norwegian power market in 2022.
The CGME fine from BaFin is a perhaps a case study for how EU NRA’s and ACER may be inclined to assess REMIT II Article 5a compliance breaches. Regulators will likely expect not only the existence of policies to govern their algo or HFT trading, but also evidence that algos are tested, monitored, and controlled. Where algo trading is outsourced, firms will be required to demonstrate the effectiveness of that outsourcing arrangement.
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