By Riham Alkousaa and Ahmad Ghaddar
BERLIN (Reuters) -Germany’s antitrust watchdog said it was investigating the impact of price information services provided by Argus Media and S&P Global on the oil wholesale market, after an initial investigation raised pricing and competition concerns.
Price quotations are usually linked to wholesale procurement contracts and can indirectly influence retail prices.
They are provided by price-reporting agencies (PRAs) such as S&P Global Commodity Insights (Platts) and Argus Media, based on reported transactions.
Last month, the Federal Cartel Office (FCO) said an examination into oil market price quotations showed pricing based on limited data which was vulnerable to manipulation, and it urged stronger regulations.
“We see indications of such a structural disruption of competition in the fuel wholesale trade,” said Andreas Mundt, the watchdog’s president, in a statement on Thursday.
“As a global leader in energy price benchmarking, we maintain a robust, rigorous and transparent methodology as well as safeguards to allow us to publish assessments reflective of market value,” a spokesperson for S&P Global Commodity Insights (Platts) said.
Argus Media said the independent price and market transparency it provides actively contributes to competition in sometimes opaque and often illiquid energy and commodity markets around the world.
It said the cartel office report made no specific allegations of wrongdoing, manipulation or collusion either by market participants or by price reporting agencies.
“Instead, it lists a number of concerns about market structure and the effect of that structure on road fuel prices in Germany,” a spokesperson for Argus said.
Both PRAs said they would cooperate with the regulator in its investigation.
European fuel prices were volatile after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, particularly as Russia was the EU’s biggest diesel supplier. The EU imposed a ban on Russian refined petroleum products in February 2023 in an effort to curb Moscow’s revenue from energy exports.
Germany’s FCO said it would use new powers obtained in 2023 to investigate whether there was a significant and ongoing competition disruption in individual markets or across markets, and address the causes if confirmed.
(Reporting by Riham Alkousaa in Berlin, Ahmad Ghaddar in LondonEditing by Miranda Murray and Emelia Sithole-Matarise, Kirsten Donovan)
