London, 19 January 2011

The EU commission will from 1800 GMT suspend the transfer of carbon units for at least a week. The move to suspend the transfer of EU allowances and Kyoto-related carbon credits between EU member states’ carbon registries follows news earlier on Wednesday that 475,000 EUAs had been stolen from the Czech registry.

“This transitional measure is taken in view of recurring security breaches in national registries over the last two months,” the European commission said on its website.

The suspension, which will not affect allocation of EUAs or the surrendering of allowances for compliance purposes, will remain in place until at least 1800 GMT on 26 January, the EU executive said.

Wednesday’s news of the theft follows hacking attempts on Austria’s registry last week and claims made in late November by cement producer Holcim that 1.6 million allowances were stolen from its Romanian registry account.

“The incidents over the last weeks have underlined the urgent need for all registries to ensure that these measures are speedily implemented,” the commission note said.

“The commission will make further announcements early next week and will work to ensure that this transitional measure can be lifted swiftly for all those registries with adequate security measures,” the note said.

In a separate announcement, French bourse Bluenext said it had suspended all trade of credits as of 1600 GMT on Wednesday in response to member concerns over the thefts.

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