Fraud crackdown will boost carbon market credibility, say experts

Carbon market credibility will be boosted and market regulation will tighten, following this week's Europe-wide crackdown on incidents of Value Added Tax (VAT) carousel fraud, say experts.

"The fraud allegations are, no doubt, a very bad thing for the market," says James Pointon, partner at law firm Brown & Rudnick. "But market participants will think it's great that the authorities are pursuing incidences of fraud and cracking down upon it."

Under the Kyoto Protocol, utilities and companies tha