Platts Oil-Price System Prone to Collusion, EU Official Says
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Platts’s oil-price reporting system “could be prone to collusion or distortion,” according to the European Union official in charge of the benchmark probe that led to raids on the premises of BP Plc, Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Statoil ASA.
“The mere set up could be prone to collusion or distortion because it doesn’t take much to basically have strange reporting” by companies that participate in the pricing system, Celine Gauer, director at the European Commission’s antitrust unit for the energy industry, said today at a conference in Brussels.