Moving toward the finish line, FERC Wednesday approved five more settlements — with Coral Power, Sempra Energy Trading, Dynegy, Glendale, CA and the Northern California Power Agency — related to its show cause order on gaming or improper partnerships in power trading, bringing the settlement total to 18.

The settlements approved Wednesday called for payment of $18.1 million in forfeited profits, including $7.8 million from Coral, $7.2 million from Sempra, $3 million from Dynegy, $25,000 from the City of Glendale and $22,448 from the Northern California Power Agency. The new payments bring to about $21.5 million the amount approved in settlements since the Commission issued its show cause order in June 2003 (see Power Market Today, June 26, 2003).

Settlements that still must be approved would add another $4.5 million for a total of $26.1 million from 20 companies. That includes $549,973 from Duke Energy, which is being rolled into a pending $207 million global settlement, two settlements with Mirant for $3.7 million and $332,411, and a second settlement with the Modesto Irrigation District for $60,000.

Cases involving Enron, the Colorado River Commission of Nevada and Public Service Co. of New Mexico are still outstanding. FERC initially ordered nearly 60 companies — essentially all the major players in the power trading business — to show cause why they should not be cited for gaming the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) and Power Exchange (PX) markets from January 2000 through June 2001.

Charges against the bulk of the companies were dropped a couple months later as they were found to be unsubstantiated, erroneous or some or the profits derived from gaming were below $10,000 in value (see Power Market Today, Aug. 25, 2003).

The largest settlements accepted by FERC prior to Wednesday were with Powerex for $1.3 million, Morgan Stanley for $857,089 and Reliant for $836,000. Other companies settling for less than $100,000 included American Electric Power, Aquila, Inc., the City of Redding, CA, Idaho Power, Modesto, PacifiCorp, Portland General, Puget Sound Energy, San Diego Gas & Electric and Williams.

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