Enron Mail |
Here is the status of projects that I am aware of:
Enquiry into Removal Strategy for Berg Defendants I spoke with Rich Levy of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher who represents SEMPRA in the Berg gas/electric class action filed in Los Angeles. [(213) 229-7556 rlevy@gdclaw.com] I asked him whether he would tell me if they were considering removal of the Berg action. He told me that he had our removal papers. He asked if we had any research that we were willing to share with him. He said they looked at preemption, filed rate doctrine, ripeness etc. and concluded that ultimately we would be in state court. He also said that he did not believe there were any good motions to dismiss that were worth making. I told him that some of the work product was a joint defense effort that would require permission to share (e.g. the Paul Hastings memo) but that there was other work product we might be willing to share that had been done on behalf of Enron. I told him that I believed that there was good ninth circuit authority that was helpful and we really believed federal court was a better forum for these types of cases. He told me he was willing to look at whatever authorities we could give him. I also told him that I understood that Mike Weaver represented Sempra in the San Diego cases and gave him Mike's contact information. He asked for copies of our complaints and I sent them on to him. He is willing to discuss the case and possibly strategic alternatives. He told me that El Paso had retained David Palmer, formerly of Gibson Dunn to represent them in this action. El Paso and David Palmer are supposedly meeting on Wednesday January 3rd. According to Rich, their time to remove expires on January 16th. He told me that the Berg case was originally filed in Texas by the Denver law firm Astrella & Rice against El Paso. That case was dismissed because the plaintiff was not a direct purchaser. The plaintiffs then sought to have Southern California Edison agree to be the named plaintiff. Apparently they refused. Rich said they were meeting with SCE to find out what else was said. There is a second gas complaint, the Continental Forge case. Apparently this case was filed in September but never served. It has now been amended and has been served. A copy is attached. (We obtained this copy from the plaintiff's website so it does not have a signature for file stamp, but Rich Levy said it was the complaint that had been served.) <<Continental Forge.cmplt.pdf<< PUC Hearings I do not have many of the details of the hearings other than a report from Mike Day that Michael Aguirre, plaintiffs' counsel in our case, argued before the PUC that the real culprits are the power marketers and the solution to the utilities problem is for the utilities to join the plaintiffs' class action in San Diego. Apparently today, Aguirre was cross examining the utility and generator witnesses before the PUC (attempting to aid counsel for the ratepayers) trying to show that the utilities should sue the power marketers. Public Record Act Request Michael Aguirre has made a public record act request for all information subpoenaed by the PUC and "any other documents related to alleged wrongdoing" from the ISO. The PUC has set January 3rd as the response date for comments on the request. Data Provided by ISO to the PUC The ISO has told market participants that they have provided day ahead and hour ahead schedules to the PUC, Bids, actual metered operations, RMR, OOM, and OOS calls, generation out of service information and import and export schedules. EPMI Data Jeff Richter reported today that he believes they now understand some of the data problems with the EPMI data. I am scheduled to be in Portland with Jeff on Friday to resolve the data issues, and discuss integration of ongoing data collection with pending and potential discovery requests. Cornerstone Teleconference Dave Noonan reports that Michael Keeley at Cornerstone is very interested in being retained. One of his partners has been contacted by another defendant but has not yet been retained by them yet. Dave suggested that we try and do a telephone interview of Michael tomorrow and retain him if we like what we hear. His CV is set forth below. I will try to coordinate a time tomorrow morning. AG Investigation So far the California AG has been reducing the scope of its data retention request. For EES, they basically wanted a snapshot and nothing else for the time being. As for individual computers, they want an organizational chart to select 6-12 computers that they are interested in. EPMI Tapes Prepared in Anticipation of Litigation We are awaiting specific model information about the Nicelog taping system used in Portland. Dan Dietrich in IT in Houston is getting that information for us. We believe we will have access to some technology that will assist in the review of these materials. We will also distribute shortly the results of our research on the production of such materials and any exact transcripts prepared of those litigation materials. Current Trading Practices Christian Yoder, Steve Hall, Marcus Woods, Alan Comnes, Dan Watkiss, Richard Sanders and myself discussed current trading practices in the out of market and over $150 cap scenarios. In short, if the ISO calls for power 20 minutes before the hour it is needed, there is no cap. In some instances, EPMI will have purchased power for $x and offer to sell it to the ISO at $x+. The plus factor being the credit risk and/or the refund risk for having sold that power in addition to prevailing market conditions. In the over $150 cap situation, EPMI will be collecting its cost data to compare with the prices charged the ISO or PX. EPMI will be matching its ISO and PX sales data with comparable high cost energy in its portfolio. This is consistent with FERC pre-existing practice. We also discussed standard instructions to traders. Price Gouging Statute Richard Sanders has asked that we revisit the California Price Gouging Statute in view of the current trading practices. California Penal Code section 396 prohibits price increases upon the proclamation of a state of emergency by the President, Governor, or executive officer of any county or city resulting from a natural or manmade disaster. For thirty days after such a proclamation, it is unlawful for any business "to sell or offer to sell any consumer . . . goods, goods or services used for emergency cleanup, . . . for a price of more than 10 percent above the price charged by that person for those goods or services immediately prior to the proclamation of emergency." Such a violation is a misdemeanor punishable by one year of jail time and a fine of up to $10,000. A violation also constitutes an unlawful business practice under section 17200. It is unclear whether this statute includes the sale of electricity and/ or the declaration of a state of emergency by the ISO. Ed Kee Engagement Letter Mike Kirby forwarded the form of engagement letter from Ed Kee. Charles River Engagement Letter I have been in discussions with Charles River over the form of the engagement letter. I hope to have that resolved shortly. Thanks Gary Michael Keeley Senior Vice President Menlo Park Office 1000 El Camino Real Menlo Park, CA 94025 650.853.1660 mkeeley@cornerstone.com <mailto:mkeeley@cornerstone.com< Michael Keeley heads the firm's antitrust practice and helped develop its intellectual property practice. He is an expert in economics, econometrics and finance. For more than twenty years, Dr. Keeley has consulted on and served as an expert in a variety of business issues and legal disputes. He has testified in Federal Court in several prominent cases, including the Long Beach crude oil price-fixing case (MDL 150) and the Mercedes-Benz tying cases. He has also consulted on, managed or served as an expert in a number of other leading cases, including the Bell Atlantic v. AT&T antitrust matter, the Aguilar, et al. v. Atlantic Richfield Corporation, et al. antitrust case, Hartford House, Ltd., d.b.a. Blue Mountain Arts v. Microsoft Corporation unfair competition case, the Lotus v. Borland and Sony v. Connectix copyright cases, the MCI v. AT&T patent matter, the AMD v. Intel arbitration, the Wyoming Tight Sands Antitrust Litigation and the Exxon-Mobil merger. He has worked on numerous antitrust and intellectual property cases, as well as on other cases dealing with issues such as securities fraud, breach of contract, transfer pricing, fraudulent conveyance and piercing the corporate veil. Dr. Keeley has also consulted on non-litigation business and economic issues, such as antitrust policy, the optimal design of regulatory programs, the reform of the welfare system, auction design and bidding strategy, and economic development. In the antitrust area, much of Dr. Keeley's consulting has focused on cases involving allegations of price fixing, monopolization, predatory pricing, tying, unfair competition and price discrimination. He has addressed issues of class certification, assessed the validity of damage studies, analyzed the competitive effects of disputed practices and gauged the potential economic effects of proposed mergers and acquisitions. Also, he authored declarations in support of summary judgment in two antitrust matters in which the courts granted summary judgment. In the intellectual property area, Dr. Keeley's consulting has focused on the proper measurement of damages in patent, copyright and trade dress infringement matters, assessment of damages in matters involving alleged breaches of technology sharing agreements and analyzing liability and damage issues arising in antitrust counterclaims. In the patent area, he has testified in a number of cases, including AlliedSignal v. Sextant Avionique, Surety Technologies and Telcordia Technologies v. Entrust Technologies, Harris Corporation v. Macronix International, Level One Communications v. SEEQ Technology, Scripto-Tokai v. Gillette and Agtek v. Spectra Physics. He has addressed issues of lost profits and reasonable royalties as well as the valuation of intellectual property in general. He has negotiated a software license and is a member of the Licensing Executives Society. He authored "Estimating Patent Damages in Patent Infringement Cases: An Economic Perspective" and "Infringement: Valuing IP for Damages," which appeared in Les Nouvelles, a publication of the Licensing Executives Society. In the oil and gas area, Dr. Keeley has served as an expert focusing on liability and damage issues in a variety of matters involving antitrust and breach of contract. In the Long Beach (MDL 150) case, he addressed the plaintiffs' allegations that defendants fixed the price of crude oil and assessed the validity of their damage claims. Dr. Keeley also addressed liability issues in the Aguilar, et al. v. Atlantic Richfield Corporation, et al. case, a class action in which the plaintiffs alleged that the defendants had fixed gasoline prices in California. In addition to serving as an expert in oil and gas cases, Dr. Keeley has served as a consultant in several matters, including the Wyoming Tight Sands Antitrust Litigation, the McMahon case, a nationwide class-action antitrust matter alleging the price fixing of crude oil and the Exxon-Mobil merger. In addition to oil and gas, Dr. Keeley has gained familiarity with a number of other industries, including the computer hardware and software, telecommunications, automotive and financial services industries. Prior to joining Cornerstone Research in 1989, he was an officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, where his responsibilities included conducting financial and economic research in support of the Federal Reserve's regulatory activities. He also analyzed the antitrust implications of bank mergers and acquisitions and made recommendations to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System regarding whether or not such mergers might have anticompetitive impacts. Before joining the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, he founded and managed Stanford Research Institute's (SRI's) Antitrust Economic Consulting Group. In addition to consulting on a variety of antitrust matters, his work at SRI focused on policy-oriented economic and statistical research. Dr. Keeley has also taught courses in managerial economics and microeconomics in the Graduate School of Business and the Department of Economics at the University of Santa Clara. Dr. Keeley's research has been published widely in economics and finance journals. He is the author of two books and over fifty published articles. Based on citations of his research, he was selected for inclusion in Who's Who in Economics. He was also awarded the Garn prize for his research on bank risk taking. He has also served as a referee (i.e., reviewer) for many of the major economics and finance journals. Education Ph.D., M.A. in economics, University of Chicago; S.B. in mathematics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology <<...<< Copyright , 2000 Cornerstone Research ======================================================= This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message. To reply to our email administrator directly, send an email to postmaster@brobeck.com BROBECK PHLEGER & HARRISON LLP http://www.brobeck.com - Continental Forge.cmplt.pdf
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