This week Energiavirasto (EV), the Finnish energy regulator, announced its proposed penalty against Kinect Energy Sweden AB for its November 2023 fat-finger incident in the Finnish power market. Kinect’s error was deemed by EV to have breached REMIT market abuse rules.
On 23 November 2023, Kinect Energy AS submitted an erroneous bid to the Nord Pool power exchange for the Finnish bidding area, which collapsed day-ahead (DA) electricity prices to -500 EUR/MWh for ten consecutive hours, creating an average daily price of -203.40 EUR/MWh, representing a price distortion of approximately 251.58 EUR/MWh below simulated market clearing levels.
The error was caused by a system configuration mistake made during the implementation of a new weather forecasting system that multiplied production forecast data by one thousand. This resulted in Kinect offering approximately 5,787 MWh of electricity, roughly half the total electricity traded in the Finnish bidding area that day, and vastly exceeding Kinect's actual wind farm production capacity.
The Finnish regulator determined that Kinect's bid constituted market manipulation under Article 5 of REMIT. Strict liability was imposed by EV, with the absence of intent rejected as a defence. The original case announcement may be found here.
Last week EV issued its first ever REMIT penalty, proposing a fine of EUR 9,254,600. In its announcement, EV described Kinect Energy's behaviour as "negligent" and highlighted the significant impact it had on not only the Finnish market but also neighbouring markets.
The proposed penalty corresponds to 5.5% of Kinect Energy Sweden AB's 2023 revenue. EV's announcement does not elaborate on exactly how this figure was arrived at. Given that the maximum penalty for violations under REMIT is 10% of the legal entity's turnover, EV's position represents a reasonably aggressive application of its sanctioning discretion.
The proposed penalty will be adjudicated by the Finnish Market Court ("Markkinaoikeus"), which specialises in handling administrative and competition-related cases. The court will hear evidence from both EV and Kinect Energy before making a final determination.
In making its determination, the court is likely to consider the various remediation steps taken by Kinect Energy on the day of the incident, steps which did not apparently make much of an impression on EV in reaching its decision. Upon realising its error, the firm quickly submitted a corrected bid and issued an Urgent Market Message (UMM) disclosing the mistake. Kinect also held multiple emergency discussions with Nord Pool in an attempt to correct the error (a request Nord Pool declined), before commencing purchases on the intra-day market on the evening of 23 November. Approximately 98.4% of the erroneously offered electricity volumes were ultimately purchased back by the firm. The exact cost of doing so was redacted from EV's Decision published in December 2025, but it is likely to have been substantial.
Should the fine be accepted by the Market Court, a concerning precedent for firms active in EU power markets will perhaps be set. This would represent one of the larger single REMIT fines issued in the EU market despite there being no malicious intent behind the activity, with several seemingly bona fide attempts also being made by the firm to correct and mitigate the impact of the error.
Such an outcome would also significantly elevate the market abuse risk associated with operational errors or fat-finger trades. Firms active in the Nordic market in particular should revisit their pre-trade controls and ensure that, where relevant, all available technical functionality provided by the execution platform or exchange is utilised to prevent such instances from occurring.
Review pre-trade controls. Firms active in EU power markets, and Nordic mar-kets in particular, should conduct a formal review of pre-trade safeguards to en-sure that volume and price limits are appropriately calibrated relative to actual production or trading capacity.
Utilise available platform functionality. Where execution platforms or ex-changes provide technical controls designed to prevent erroneous order submis-sion, firms should ensure these are enabled, actively configured and main-tained.
Establish UMM protocols for error scenarios. This case reinforces the need for prompt disclosure via Urgent Market Message following a significant trade error – in many markets this is an expectation and a factor (although perhaps not in the Kinect case) that regulators may take into account when assessing proportionali-ty of any penalty.
Assess fat-finger risk in market abuse risk assessments (MARAs). Firms should integrate this precedent into their MARAs to reflect the elevated regulatory risk attached to operational errors that produce significant price distortion, irre-spective of intent.
Strict liability remains a material enforcement risk. EV's rejection of absence of intent as a defence again demonstrates that negligence, rather than deliberate misconduct, is sufficient to attract a REMIT enforcement action. Risk frame-works should reflect this accordingly.
For a detailed analysis of the original case, see RegTrail's Insights blog: Finnish Regulator Finds Fat-Finger Firm Violated REMIT