The European Securities and Markets Authority, better known as ESMA, has released the latest line-up for its task force on commodity derivatives. The group has the unenviable task of analysing and monitoring all regulatory developments for commodity financial markets. Given what is and what is not a financial derivative for power and gas products has yet to crystallise into a solid definition, the group will be busy over the period. And as recent ESMA meeting on the treatment of commodity derivatives in the updated MiFID text showed, there is a lot of ironing out of definitions to go. Utilities such as RWE and Endesa are represented in the group; as are banks such as Morgan Stanley and platform providers such as Trayport.
