Though the payments were said by the two companies to be based on complex pricing assessments, the S.E.C. said detailed schedules drawn up by the companies were "a meaningless exercise" to make the payments appear to be something other than what they were.
In order to be considered in a Platts price assessment, bids and offers must be incremental and executable, and all transactions are immediately verified.
The EC also said that it had concerns that some companies may have sought to increase the influence of its price inflations by "preventing others from participating in the price assessment process, with a view to distorting published prices".
The size will for 2,500 MMBtu with a monthly cash future settled against the Platts LNG Gulf Coast Marker price assessment.
If not, there will be no takers.Platts MOC price-assessment process is transparent.
The publishers offer price assessments for oil, natural gas, electricity, nuclear power, coal, emissions, petrochemical, shipping and metals markets.
This covers the carbon-dioxide market in Europe, and the sulphur-dioxide and nitrogen-oxide markets in America, publishing daily price assessments for the leading contracts.
There was no abnormal trading activity within Platts' Urals Market-on-Close (MOC) price-assessment process, and there is no evidence of such.
"We are not aware of any evidence that our price assessments are not reflective of market value," it says, before declaring that it stands behind its method.Money in movementYet such price-setting mechanisms have come in for criticism.
Any company that bids or offers in our price-assessment process faces the marketplace as a whole, and will find willing counterparts only when those bids or offers are at market value.
We want to assure The Economist's readers, our subscribers and the market at large that, contrary to your publication's suppositions, our price assessments for the Urals market, both then and now, reflect the realities of the global marketplace, not the alleged intentions of one company.LARRY NEAL President, Platts New York.
