National Energy Regulatory Authority (ANRE) is investigating 26 energy companies for market manipulation, and the fines will be between 5 and 10% of their turnover, said on Wednesday Dumitru Chiriţă, ANRE president.

He spoke at the Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry into Energy Prices.

“We have 26 economic operators under investigation for market manipulation. What we found: operator A sells to B a quantity of electricity, B sells the same quantity to A at high prices. And, through this market manipulation formula, the price increases,” Chiriţă said, according to Agerpres.

According to him, so far, the fines have been symbolic, but from now on the law will apply, which provides for the application of fines ranging between 5 and 10% of turnover.

“It is quite difficult to investigate in this area, but we have equipment that allows us to clone data and information from the electronic systems of the operators. It is an equipment taken from the United States, for which every six months we have to sign a statement that we only use it for the purpose for which we purchased it,” added the ANRE president.

He emphasized that all this information was confidential and would be made available only to the commission of inquiry.