Judge

Montana’s Public Service Commission last Tuesday unanimously agreed to establish criteria it would use to judge future offers to buy Chapter 11-mired NorthWestern Energy, the holding company for the major electric/natural gas utilities in the state. By a 5-0 vote, the commission directed its staff to develop potential criteria for sales offers that may come after NorthWestern emerges from bankruptcy later this year.

Montana’s Public Service Commission on Tuesday unanimously agreed to establish criteria it would use to judge future offers to buy Chapter 11-mired NorthWestern Energy, the holding company for the major electric/natural gas utilities in the state. By a 5-0 vote, the commission directed its staff to develop potential criteria for sales offers that may come after NorthWestern emerges from bankruptcy later this year.

An administrative law judge (ALJ) recommended that FERC adopt a number of reforms to ANR Pipeline’s existing cash-out mechanism, putting an end to a way of dealing with shipper imbalances that has “perplexed” the agency and the pipeline’s shippers “for many years.”

An administrative law judge (ALJ) recommended that FERC adopt a number of reforms to ANR Pipeline’s existing cash-out mechanism, putting an end to a way of dealing with shipper imbalances that has “perplexed” the agency and the pipeline’s shippers “for many years.”

U.S. District Judge Harold Baer, Jr. in Manhattan has agreed with Allegheny Energy that its counterclaims against Merrill Lynch should be heard by the court, particularly the charges regarding whether Allegheny was misled when it purchased Global Energy Markets (GEM) from Merrill in 2001 for $490 million and a 2% equity interest in the trading unit.

U.S. District Judge Harold Baer, Jr. in Manhattan has agreed with Allegheny Energy that its counterclaims against Merrill Lynch should be heard by the court, particularly the charges regarding whether Allegheny was misled when it purchased Global Energy Markets (GEM) from Merrill in 2001 for $490 million and a 2% equity interest in the trading unit.

The New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc. (Nymex) announced it has been informed that Judge John G. Koeltl of the U.S. District Court Southern District of New York Tuesday dismissed four of the five lawsuit counterclaims made against Nymex by the IntercontinentalExchange (ICE).

A FERC administrative law judge (ALJ) last Wednesday certified to the full Commission a combined settlement between El Paso Electric Co., the California attorney general, the California Electricity Oversight Board (CEOB) and FERC trial staff aimed at resolving allegations that the utility colluded with Enron during California’s energy crisis to manipulate the wholesale market and artificially inflate prices.

A federal judge last week ordered The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc., a publisher of energy price indexes, to appear in a Houston courtroom on June 2 to show cause why it should not be forced to turn over subpoenaed documents to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) as part of an investigation into the reporting of bogus prices and other trade data to energy publications.