Griffin has successfully completed its authorisation process with the French regulators, the AMF and ACPR, to enable it to operate an OTF in France following Brexit.
The establishment of an OTF in the European Union will ensure that participants in the European energy markets will continue to be able to take advantage of the C6 REMIT carveout which keeps physical gas and power outside financial regulation when traded through an OTF.
To prevent any splits in liquidity, Griffin will operate only one OTF at any one time and will therefore close its UK OTF at the same time as opening the French OTF. Given the continued uncertainty surrounding Brexit, no date has yet been set for this change over and this will
ultimately be determined by the timing of Brexit. Until then, Griffin’s business will continue to operate as normal from the UK.
Griffin has set up a new company in France, Griffin Markets Europe SAS, from which it will operate the OTF following Brexit. Details of the company are set out below:
| Company Name | Griffin Markets Europe SAS |
| Company Number | (RCS) 843 904 954 |
| LEI | 969500OBCS5EQT67NQ53 |
| VAT Number | FR (xx) 843 904 954 |
| Operating MIC Code | GMES |
| Segment MIC Code (OTF) | GMEO |
| Address (from 1 March 2019) | 40 rue du Louvre |
| 75001 Paris |
In the event of a negotiated Brexit which preserves passporting rights between the UK and the EU, Griffin may continue to provide certain “arranging” services for cleared trades (i.e. outside the OTF) from the UK. Griffin will be authorised to provide these services from France but a firm decision on this will be taken when there is more clarity on Brexit.
In all circumstances, Griffin will continue to provide regulatory reporting services including REMIT and MiFID II (including transaction and commodity position limit) reporting. In the event of a hard Brexit, it is likely that REMIT reporting in respect of UK-related contracts will
not be required by Ofgem pending a period of consultation.
Based upon a notification from the AMF, Griffin will continue to classify physically-settled NBP, UK power and Swiss power contracts traded through its French OTF as non-financial instruments.
From a technical perspective, market participants should not need to make any significant technical changes to access Griffin’s French OTF beyond creating a new Trayport entity for Griffin Markets Europe SAS which will need to be mapped to a new broker entity in back office systems.
Some changes may also be needed for Straight-Through-Processing for the registration of cleared trades but this will depend on whether arranging services for cleared trades are relocated to France. This might also require replicating give-up agreement arrangements.
In the event of a hard Brexit, Griffin will implement a modified workflow to facilitate trading for participants in the PEG gas market who have a presence in the UK and the EU and want to allocate their trading activities between their UK and EU entities.
Griffin has distributed on-boarding details to its customers but market participants should get in touch if they have not yet received this.
