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US: Court reversal means energy cos to face buyers again

By  |  April 15, 2013

A US Court of Appeals in San Francisco has reversed a lower court’s previous ruling that dismissed allegations against several electric companies, reinstating a group of lawsuits accused of price-fixing during California’s energy crisis. Duke Energy Corp., CMS Energy Corp., and other giants in the energy market were freed from allegations that they manipulated prices from 2000 to 2002. The case has been revived, however, as the appeals court has ruled that the US Natural Gas Act does not block state-law antitrust lawsuits concerning energy prices initiated by the buyers of that natural gas. The Act gives the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission jurisdiction over some pricing policies. The consumers argue that the companies reported false data to trade publications which used that data to calculate price indexes used to determine some contracts between buyers and sellers of natural gas.

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