Reply #10: Regulators order Enron to forfeit $32 million [View All]

[UpInArms]

Regulators order Enron to forfeit $32
million
Energy giant conspired to control market

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/07/23/BUGN77RQ2H1.DTL&type=business

Sacramento -- Federal energy regulators ordered Enron on Thursday to give back more than $32 million in "unjust'' power profits in a ruling that could lead to much broader findings that the disgraced energy giant unfairly gamed West Coast electricity markets for six years.

Concluding that Enron secretly conspired with another Texas electricity company, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ruled that Enron broke market rules by hiding its business relationship with a supposed competitor. The commission also ordered an administrative law judge to review all of Enron's dealings in the West between 1997 and 2003 to determine if the company should be forced to refund all of its profit during the period, which includes the California energy crisis.

The order is symbolically significant, as it will lead to more scrutiny of Enron's entire electricity business during a lengthy period when the company scored huge profits at the expense of consumers in California and throughout the West.

<snip>

On Thursday, regulators ruled that Enron violated federal market law by working with El Paso Electric Co. without reporting the arrangement.

"In short, Enron at times had control over the quantity, availability and pricing of wholesale power sales by a competitor,'' the commission wrote in an order that will require Enron to deposit $32.5 million into a U.S. Treasury Department account.

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