A unit of French energy company TotalEnergies agreed to pay $5 million to settle claims by U.S. energy regulators that it and some of its traders allegedly manipulated the natural gas market in 2009-2012.
The settlement is much smaller than the $214 million the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission had sought from TotalEnergies’ Total Energies Gas & Power North America (TGPNA) unit and some of its traders.
To fully resolve the claims and allegations, the TotalEnergies unit agreed to pay $5 million in restitution to certain agreed-upon non-governmental organizations, FERC said in an order on Wednesday.
The order was neither an admission of liability by the TotalEnergies’ unit nor a concession by FERC Enforcement that its claims are not well-founded, FERC said.
“TGPNA is pleased with the settlement agreement approved by FERC that fully resolves FERC’s investigation into some of TGPNA’s gas-trading activities more than ten years ago,” TotalEnergies spokesman François Sinecan said in an email.
“The settlement dismisses all of (FERC) Enforcement’s claims and allegations with prejudice. From the start, TGPNA had consistently stated that it acted lawfully and TGPNA is pleased to put this matter behind (it),” Sinecan said.
In 2015, FERC alleged the TotalEnergies’ unit 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 couple of decades in which traders lose money in one market to benefit larger positions in a benchmark or other financial index.
(Reporting by Scott DiSavino Editing by Bill Berkrot and Deepa Babington)