Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Clown-Free Zone... sorry, no clowns allowed -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: patron_anejo_por_favor who wrote (59394)	1/18/2001 4:20:13 PM
From: patron_anejo_por_favor	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 436258

Send lawyers, guns and money...the CALIUTES have hit the fan!!!<G> biz.yahoo.com Thursday January 18, 3:51 pm Eastern Time As blackouts hit, San Francisco sues power producers SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 18 (Reuters) - The City of San Francisco, hit by rolling blackouts in California's escalating energy crisis, on Thursday sued 13 companies on charges of manipulating power supplies to keep prices high. ``The companies are playing with marked cards,'' San Francisco City Attorney Louise Renne said in announcing the suit.``They have a very dim allegiance to their customers. I think consumers know when they are being conned and this is a clear instance of corporations taking advantage of a deregulated market to make a quick buck.'' San Francisco's suit comes as California officials led by Gov. Gray Davis lay blame for the state's power problems in part on out-of-state generators who are charging the state's two top utilities up to 10 times as much for electricity as they were at thistime last year. The skyrocketing spot energy prices have left PG&E Corp. (NYSE:PCG - news) unit Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison, a division of Edison International (NYSE:EIX - news), billions of dollars in debt and without sufficient credit to buy the power California needs. As a result, the state instituted mandatory rolling blackouts on Wednesday and Thursday -- enforcing, for the first time ever, widespread power cuts in an effort to keep the entire electricity grid from collapsing. In November a $1 billion consumer class action suit was filed in San Diego charging most of the same power generators with price manipulation, while three San Diego water districts Wednesday launched their own suit against the power producers. Named in San Francisco's suit are Dynegy Power Marketing, Inc.; Enron Energy Services; Enron Power Marketing, Inc.; PG&E Energy Trading; Reliant Energy Services, Inc.; Sempra Energy Trading; Sempra Energy Resources; Southern Company Energy Marketing; Williams Energy Marketing and Trading; Williams Energy Services Company; Duke Energy Trading and Marketing, LLC.; NRG Energy; and Morgan Stanley Capital Group, Inc. The city suit, filed on Thursday in San Francisco Superior Court, charges the companies with violating the California Unfair Competition Act by conspiring to restrict supplies and drive up prices. It seeks a court order halting anti-competitive behavior by the companies and directing the an estimated $1 billion in what it called ``illegal profits'' to consumers. The suit alleges that the power companies unlawfully restrained the energy available to California markets through the California Power Exchange (PX), an auction house for trading electricity, and the California Independent System Operator (ISO), which oversees the state's transmission grid. ``They conspired to obtain and trade information relating to energy supply, pricing and demand; and they combined illegally to raise the bid price for energy on the PX market,'' the suit charges. Renne said that San Francisco, which purchases its energy on the wholesale market, has been forced to pay artificially inflated prices. ``In a freely competitive market, prices would be substantially lower. Consumers and taxpayers are rightfully outraged,'' Renne said.