Physical settlement of expired futures positions is carried our by the European Commodity Clearing AG ECC), the clearing house of the Eurex Group entity European Energy Exchange (EEX).

As a specialized clearing house experienced in the physical delivery of EUAs and CERs, ECC offers fully integrated delivery management for transactions in emission rights. Furthermore, ECC offers the fastest physical delivery process for emissions in today's market environment and contributes to the reduction of settlement risks in the delivery chain of trading participants.

Emission rights process

ECC’s external and internal account structure allows primary- and secondary-market EUAs to be segregated. ECC provides maximum security by guaranteeing the legal origin of the primary auction share of a given member’s EUA holdings.

Registry Transfer

A member can request a transfer of its holdings to any registry account at any time. The Registry Transfer request has to be entered via the ECC Member Area. It needs to be approved according to the principle of dual control.

ECC checks the request against the member’s actual holdings and subsequently initiates the transfer. As soon as the member has entered a Registry Transfer request, its holdings are blocked. The account balance is updated after a successful transfer.

Prerequisites and responsibilities

Before trading, the certificates have to be delivered to the ECC registry account. Transactions are fulfilled by means of transfers between ECC's internal delivery accounts. There are no registry transactions.

Members have to ensure that they hold sufficient volumes in their account to fulfill their obligations on the delivery day. The expected balance of holdings is monitored. ECC contacts the member in case of a negative value. In case of non-delivery or a delivery default, ECC cancels the spot transaction or initiates a buy-in procedure.

After payment, the respective number of emissions is debited from the seller's account, and the buyer's account is credited with the said number of emissions. Internal account transfers are only possible from the primary market account to the secondary market account.