FERC Staff Issues A White Paper Providing Guidance On Effective Compliance Programs

On November 17, 2016, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (the "Commission" or "FERC") Office of Enforcement ("FERC Staff") issued a White Paper on Effective Energy Trading Compliance Practices ("Compliance White Paper") to provide jurisdictional companies with concrete examples of how to design, implement, and assess compliance practices that "may" prevent or detect market manipulation.¹  FERC Staff characterizes the Compliance White Paper as a supplement to the Commission's five prior policy statements related to compliance.²  However, the Compliance White Paper contains a lengthy list of prescriptive measures that FERC Staff recommends that companies should consider when developing and enforcing an effective compliance program.  Many of the recommended measures make sense especially in light of recent enforcement actions, but others may be impractical or expensive to implement.