yest. sorry we were a bit late with this
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EU CO2 Permits Stolen From Romania's Holcim Account (Update1)
2010-12-01 18:37:41.911 GMT
(Updates with Allen & Overy comment in seventh paragraph)
By Catherine Airlie
Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) -- The Romanian unit of Holcim Ltd., the
world's second-biggest cement maker, said about 15 million euros
($19. million) worth of European Union carbon-dioxide permits
were stolen from its account.
"Unknown persons have stolen 1.6 million CO2
certificates," Holcim said in a statement on its website
yesterday. One million permits were transferred to an account in
Liechtenstein and 600,000 were moved to a company with
registries in Italy and the U.K., Holcim said.
Holcim has asked the EU, which oversees the emissions
registries, to help it track the stolen permits and stop them
from being traded. The European Union Allowances, or EUAs, have
a unique identification number, and the stolen ones are listed
on Holcim's website.
EU permits for December rose 8 cents, or 0.5 percent to
14.84 euros a metric ton as of 5:30 p.m. on London's ICE Futures
Europe exchange.
Holcim may not get the allowances back even if they are
found, according to Owen Lomas, a consultant at Allen & Overy
LLP's climate change group. Tracking them may still be easy
because of their identification, said Marius Frunza, the Paris-
based head of structuring at Sagacarbon, a unit of French state-
owned lender Caisse des Depots et Consignations.
Closed System
"As we deal with an electronic closed system these EUAs
could be tracked through the registry systems," Frunza said in
a statement, adding such fraud was common in the banking
industry 10 years ago. "As a ubiquitous phenomena we might not
see any change in confidence levels for this market."
ICE Futures Europe, the London-based exchange that handles
most EUA transactions, declined to comment on whether the
permits have traded and if they would take any action. The
Paris-based Bluenext exchange was unable to comment when reached
by phone.
"The legal answer is not straightforward because we're
dealing with a range of jurisdictions" said London-based Lomas.
In English law, assuming they were treated as a type of
property, the legal owner would usually get the allowances back,
but in some countries, such as Germany, an "innocent buyer"
may be entitled to keep the permits, he said.
For Related News and Information:
Emissions-trading stories: NI ENVMARKET BN <GO>
Today's top energy news: ETOP <GO>
Natural-gas markets menu: NATG <GO>
Link to Company News: DBK GR <Equity> CN <GO>
Editors: Raj Rajendran, Justin Carrigan
To contact the reporter on this story:
Catherine Airlie at +44-20-7073-3308 or
cairlie@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Stephen Voss at +44 207 7073 3520 or
sev@bloomberg.net
