The Firm's Utility and Energy Practice Group consists of 9 attorneys who practice extensively in the area of public utility law. While the primary focus of this practice group is the regulation of utilities in Kentucky, it also participates in condemnation and eminent domain litigation, franchise negotiations and litigation, state utility tax issues, and transactions and litigation involving utility industry issues.
Three members of the Practice Group have 40 or more years of experience practicing public utilities and energy law. This includes the representation of clients before the Kentucky Public Service Commission, the Virginia State Corporation Commission, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and other state and federal regulatory bodies, as well as before federal and state trial and appellate courts. Such matters typically include rate adjustments, transfers of control, financing and construction applications, and consumer complaint proceedings.
Representative types of clients include investor-owned electric, gas, water, and telecommunications companies, water districts, and industrial purchasers of T.V.A. power.
Experience and Representative Engagements:
- Serving as lead counsel nationally obtaining the approval of a merger involving the largest water company in the United States
- Serving as lead counsel for Kentucky’s two largest investor-owned energy companies in state regulatory matters in numerous electric or gas base rate cases and rate mechanism cases.
- Serving as lead counsel for obtaining all state regulatory approvals connected with four multibillion-dollar mergers or acquisitions.
- Representing numerous competitive telecommunications carriers, including CLECs and inter-exchange carriers, on matters of inter-carrier relations, interconnection disputes and compliance
- Successful defense of antitrust and state law rate claims in federal action brought against two nationwide providers of interexchange service
- Serving as lead counsel obtaining a favorable decision of the Kentucky Supreme Court interpreting certified territory statutes for electric utilities
- Serving as lead counsel in an initial public offering of stock for a gas utility and in numerous debt and equity securities offerings thereafter for the same company
- Negotiation and drafting of agreements for jointly owned electric generating plants between investor-owned and cooperatively owned utilities