The Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate (ILT) imposes a new, higher penalty on Chemours Netherlands B.V. The company again brought more hydrofluorocarbons to the European market in 2024 than allowed. Hydrofluorocarbons are very powerful greenhouse gases that directly and significantly contribute to climate change. Therefore, the ILT wants to enforce compliance and prevent further violations by imposing a penalty of 20ac 66.76 per exceeded ton of CO2-equivalent with a maximum of 20ac 19.7 million.
In 2023, Chemours Netherlands B.V. already incurred a penalty of 20ac 1 million for exceeding the quota. As in 2023, this violation also concerns the import of HFC-23 (trifluoromethane). The ILT therefore considers the repeated violation in 2024 very serious.
Repetition
The ILT wants to enforce compliance by imposing a higher penalty so that repetition of the violation becomes financially unattractive. For the penalty now imposed, the European price for emission in 2025 of 20ac 66.76 was used. That amount was multiplied by the exceedance in 2024: 98,375 tons CO2-equivalent. The result of this calculation was multiplied by a factor of 3 because the penalty covers multiple calendar years. As a result, the penalty amount and the maximum forfeitable amount are much higher than the first penalty from 2022.
Production process
In addition, Chemours, as in 2023, also reported to the European Commission in 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 that HFC-23 was imported with the intention to destroy it and was therefore exempt from quota. ILTs investigation revealed that Chemours used the imported HFC-23 in the production process during those years and was therefore not exempt from quota. The investigation also showed that Chemours did not report the import of HFC-23 in 2021 to the European Commission.
Quota reduction
Based on this information, the European Commission decided to impose a quota reduction of 964,724 tons CO2-equivalent on Chemours. Chemours has appealed this decision to the European Court of Justice. A preliminary injunction was requested to not apply the quota reduction pending the ruling. The Court rejected the request. The case is still ongoing. It is expected that the European Commission will impose this quota reduction on Chemours in 2026 for the calendar year 2027. The company will then have to operate with a significantly lower allowed quota for hydrofluorocarbons and will have much less room to market them.