In his continuing quest to go after major wholesale power generator/marketers from the 2000-2001 crisis period, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer last Wednesday filed yet another lawsuit. This one was against bankrupt Mirant Corp, alleging wholesale electricity market manipulation.

It was filed in a state Superior Court in San Francisco and alleges that Mirant “unjustly profited from fraudulent trading schemes in 2000-2001,” Lockyer spokesperson Tom Dresslar said in an e-mail announcement.

The lawsuit, which names Mirant and many of its affiliates, “seeks an unspecified amount of damages, restitution, disgorgement of unjust profits and civil penalties,” Dresslar said. “The combined total could easily reach into the hundreds of millions of dollars.”

Violations of California corporate/business practices law, including one against anti-competitive actions, are cited by Lockyer in his latest legal broadside. He alleges that Mirant traders engaged in “congestion games, ancillary services-related games, and reported false outages of generation plants.”

Under the unfair business practices alleged, Mirant is accused of “offering to sell ancillary services to CAISO without having any physical resources backing up the sale, misrepresenting ‘out-of-market’ sales of power to CAISO, and overstating the amount of load they expected to serve, thereby collecting payment(s) for the ‘excess’ generation at the market-clearing prices.”

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