On the grounds of First Amendment rights and charging that the information sought is “overly broad” and “confidential,” McGraw-Hill filed a motion with the United States District Court for the Northern District of California that seeks to quash subpoenas for natural gas price data supplied to the publisher by the Williams Cos.’ energy trading unit.

Directly, the company seeks to put down subpoenas to testify before the grand jury issued to McGraw-Hill and to Inside FERC’s Gas Market Report’s Chief Editor Kelley Doolan on application of U.S. Attorney Kevin V. Ryan.

On behalf of the grand jury, Ryan served subpoenas in late August to McGraw-Hill and Doolan seeking information on monthly natural gas transaction information submitted by Williams Energy Marketing & Trading to Inside FERC. The subpoenas also seek what role this information had in creating the publication’s monthly price indexes.

Citing the First Amendment to the Constitution and common law reporter’s privilege, McGraw-Hill said this law squarely applies to the documents and testimony sought from McGraw-Hill and Doolan and can be overcome only upon a showing that the requested documents and testimony are:

“The government cannot make this showing here,” the publisher said.

McGraw-Hill also believes that the subpoenas are “unreasonable and oppressive” under Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure 17(c) as evidenced through:

“McGraw-Hill respectively requests that this court quash the subpoenas or issue a protective order modifying their scope,” the company asked. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker is expected to rule on the motion as soon as Oct. 21.

McGraw-Hill is also currently battling a similar case in Houston. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has subpoenaed data on a total of 19 gas trading companies from McGraw-Hill’s Platts unit, which has challenged the subpoena in court on the grounds of First Amendment protection (see Daily GPI, July 15).

In a related development ONEOK last week joined the list of companies admitting that some price information submitted to publications was inaccurate. The announcement came out of an investigation sparked by a CFTC subpoena. ONEOK said it is fully cooperating with the CFTC and will continue its own internal investigation.

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