The first of the marketers to bow out of the natural gasderegulation era in Georgia is going on the offensive almost a yearafter the company filed for bankruptcy. Peachtree Natural Gas whichis still in bankruptcy court, filed a $50 million suit against AGLResources, Atlanta Gas Light and billing provider Utilipro in theState Court of Fulton County.

The marketer claims the defendants “have intentionally,maliciously, and without privilege interfered with existing andprospective contractual and business relations between PeachtreeNatural Gas and its potential and existing customers.”

“It’s something we handle in the normal course of our business.We were not surprised by the suit and we will defend ourselvesvigorously in court on this,” said AGL’s spokesperson Nick Gold.”We feel the suit is without merit.”

In the filing, Peachtree claims that Utilipro did not carry outits agreement to provide accurate billing as well as otherservices. Peachtree said its customer’s bills were oftenmis-calculated, sent to the wrong address, or were never sent inthe first place, while Utilipro, which is 80% AGL-owned, providedaccurate billing and other collection-related services forcustomers of AGL Resources’ affiliate Georgia Natural Gas.

Peachtree alleges that “AGL, by itself, and in conjunction withits corporate affiliates, including Atlanta Gas Light and GeorgiaNatural Gas, directed and procured many of Utilipro’s failures andviolations of its agreements with Peachtree Natural Gas describedhereinafter in order to increase Georgia Natural Gas’ market shareamong natural gas customers in Georgia and, ultimately, benefit AGLat Peachtree Natural Gas’ expense.”

Peachtree filed for bankruptcy in October citing “unexpectedcapital needs and billing problems.” At that time, Deborah Latham,Peachtree’s CEO, pointed toward the Georgia Public ServiceCommission’s (GPSC) requirement for suppliers to purchase liquefiednatural gas supplies from AGL and delays in billing by Utilipro as thecauses for the debt (see Daily GPI, Oct. 29,1999).

As a result, the Georgia bankruptcy court in November named ShellEnergy Services the winning bidder for Peachtree Natural Gas’ 170,000customers. Shell’s $19.3 million offering beat out the only othercompany involved in the bidding, Georgia Natural Gas (see Daily GPI,Nov. 18, 1999).

Earlier this year, Utilipro, which serves electric and gassuppliers in California, Georgia, New Jersey, Nevada, andPennsylvania, said it was forced to cut staff members and reorganizethe company due to deregulation taking hold too slowly. Utilicorp’sCEO Brian Gillespie acknowledged the problems with Peachtree, but saidthe situation in Georgia was not a contributing factor to thereorganization. He said at the time, “Certainly, Peachtree was a goodcompany, but it had other issues besides our billing that caused theirproblems” (see Daily GPI, April 7).

Gold said his company must respond to the suit within 30 days,but added, “this is just the beginning of this whole process which,as suits play out, could take years.”

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