Power traders remanded in custody in Danish market manipulation case

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) -Eight employees of a Danish power trading company will be held in police custody for the next four weeks while suspicion of market manipulation is investigated, a court in the city of Aarhus ruled on Thursday.

All eight suspects had pleaded not guilty earlier in the day, Danish news agency Ritzau reported.

Denmark's national police unit for special crime on Wednesday said the group had been charged, but did not name them or the company they worked for.

The court later issued a gag order prohibiting media from identifying the suspects.

The suspects were charged with manipulating the market between March 2021 and March this year, Ritzau reported from the preliminary hearing in the Aarhus district court.

Five of the defendants lodged appeals of Thursday's custody decision, police said.

The company under investigation is believed to have earned illegal profits of 100 million Danish crowns ($14.7 million) or more, according to police.

Police conducted raids at several addresses in the Aarhus area of western Denmark on Wednesday.

Nordic power exchange Nord Pool said they treat all reports of suspected suspicious activity as confidential.

"We have no insight into actions or investigations being undertaken by other bodies," Nord Pool told Reuters.

($1 = 6.7999 Danish crowns)

(Reporting by Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen, Louise Rasmussen, Nikolaj Skydsgaard, Terje Solsvik and Nora Buli; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and Jan Harvey)