NEW YORK, Sept 29 (Reuters) - The Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) said on Friday it will no longer accept the practice of re-submission for sampling and grading of arabica coffees which have previously been certificated for delivery and subsequently de-certified.

In a short note, the exchange added requests for grading of coffee previously certified will continue to be accepted through Nov. 30, as well as any requests which are still pending grading.

With the action, the exchange is closing the door on a controversial operation in the coffee futures market, the one performed by some traders who used to re-certify old coffees to escape the exchange's aging penalties and boost the value of the bags they have at ICE's warehouses.

On those moves, now being prohibited, traders would de-certify or retrieve coffee from ICE's stocks, and present them again for grading. If that coffee passed grading, it would re-enter ICE stocks as fresh, without the penalties or price discounts the exchange applies to coffees that are sitting there for years.

Those traders did not even need to move the coffee from the warehouse, according to the previous rules.

The practice infuriated some roasters in the United States that were taking delivery of ICE coffees when buying futures at the exchange, and found that sometimes they were receiving coffees several years old.

"It undermines the entire legitimacy of the contract. Five-year-old coffee is priced at even money, so true fresh coffee must carry an enormous premium," said one of the roasters after Reuters published a story about the practice last year. He asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the topic.

"That depresses the value of the coffee market, and keeps differentials very abnormally high. These bastardized re-re-regrades have broken the entire system," he said.

(Reporting by Marcelo Teixeira Editing by Chris Reese)