The Excess Emissions Penalty is made flesh in Article 16 of the EU ETS directive.
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Article 16: Penalties
- 1. Member States shall lay down the rules on penalties applicable to infringements of the national provisions adopted pursuant to this Directive and shall take all measures necessary to ensure that such rules are implemented. The penalties provided for must be effective, proportionate and dissuasive. Member States shall notify these provisions to the Commission by 31 December 2003 at the latest, and shall notify it without delay of any subsequent amendment affecting them.
- 2. Member States shall ensure publication of the names of operators who are in breach of requirements to surrender sufficient allowances under Article 12(3).
- 3. Member States shall ensure that any operator who does not surrender sufficient allowances by 30 April of each year[1] to cover its emissions during the preceding year shall be held liable for the payment of an excess emissions penalty. The excess emissions penalty shall be EUR 100 for each tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent emitted by that installation for which the operator has not surrendered allowances. Payment of the excess emissions penalty shall not release the operator from the obligation to surrender an amount of allowances equal to those excess emissions when surrendering allowances in relation to the following calendar year.
- 4. During the three-year period beginning 1 January 2005, Member States shall apply a lower excess emissions penalty of EUR 40 for each tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent emitted by that installation for which the operator has not surrendered allowances. Payment of the excess emissions penalty shall not release the operator from the obligation to surrender an amount of allowances equal to those excess emissions when surrendering allowances in relation to the following calendar year.
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Note: the excess emissions penalty falls on those operators who actually emit carbon dioxide. To the extent you are a financial, and your business is in the trading, liquidity and market making of EUAs themselves, and not offsetting real-world carbon emissions they are designed to control, then EEPs are not likely to come high up your list of priorities. That being said, there is an indirect implication for financial-only counterparties if they fail to deliver to operators in time so operators can surrender to the authorities by the Reconciliation Deadline, since the former’s settlement failure brings a real world penalty charge on the later. Therefore you may wish to consider the otherwise rather perplexing Failure to Deliver language in the Annex dealing with that contingency.