Vitol to Pay Over $2 Million to Settle US Power Market Case

(Bloomberg) -- Commodity trading giant Vitol Group and one of its traders will pay a total of $2.3 million to settle US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission charges that they gamed the California power markets a decade ago.

FERC found that “the conduct” of Vitol and Federico Corteggiano, a power trader based in Houston, “violated certain provisions of the Federal Power Act and the Commission’s Regulations,” it said in a filing posted to its website late Thursday. 

Vitol declined to comment. The company and Corteggiano “neither admit nor deny the alleged violation,” the filing says. The case has been ongoing since 2019 and dates back to events in October 2013 when Corteggiano was alleged to have engaged in trades to mitigate what could have been a big loss on California power. 

It’s the second time an employer of Corteggiano — who helped design the software that California’s power markets ran on at the time — have paid penalties for his trades. Of the total $2.3 million, he will pay $75,000 to the US Treasury.

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