A week after being suspended due to software piracy, the European Climate Exchange will not start to a trickle on Wednesday. The platform for exchanges of Paris, Bluenext, which handles about 40% of carbon credits exchanged for cash in the European Union, will not reopen, nor ECX London. Bluenext expects the market to be officially served the securities that were stolen last week. For it is a theft committed by breaking computer, this time, tarnish the CO2 market established in 2005, already tarnished last year by a wide VAT fraud.
On 19 January, a broker Czech warned the European Commission, coordinator of the market, 475,000 carbon credits, worth $ 6.3 million, had disappeared from his account.In total, according to Brussels, 2 million licenses (worth nearly EUR 30 million) were stolen by hackers from the registers Czech, Austrian and Greek.
The some 12,000 industrial sites in Europe subject to emission quotas of carbon dioxide (CO2) are enrolled in national registries. Companies that exceed their quotas can buy carbon credits (one credit = 1 tonne of carbon) while companies can sell virtuous.
"Restoring confidence"
Other actors, brokers, banks or even individuals can open an account on the register to exchange carbon credits for cash or futures (derivatives market) on various platforms like Bluenext. Protections computer half a dozen records are inadequate, found in Brussels."The Commission is finalizing the definition of minimum safety levels," said Peter Zapfel, Directorate General for Climate Action best payday advance. In France, Caisse des Depots et Consignations (CDC) is the keeper of the register, which, say several sources, was not attacked. "The market is shaken" by this new case, recognizes Keiron Allen, director of marketing for Bluenext, all players must restore confidence. " "But we must not forget that it works and it helps reduce emissions of greenhouse gas emissions," he adds.
Today, each tonne of carbon Virtual European market is identified by a serial number.A warning system would alert the brokers when loans are subject to suspicious transactions could be generalized, suggests there be in Bluenext.
Still in its infancy, the Exchange of CO2 must start its third phase in 2013, where the credits will no longer be allocated initially free but sold at auction. Brussels plans to bring together the twenty-seven national records in a single, more secure.
"If there is a market to watch, where the risk exists of Far West is that of CO2," warned last month Jean-Pierre Jouyet, the president of the Financial Markets Authority (AMF). That is why in the coming weeks Bluenext will officially become a regulated market, overseen by the AMF.
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