Three years after Kansas felt the brunt of the 2021 Winter Storm Uri, a lawsuit filed against some of the natural gas providers is still alive and the subject of a federal judge’s recent ruling against the gas companies.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Angel D. Mitchell in Kansas City ruled against the move by Concord Energy LLC and Spotlight Energy LLC to seek a protective order permitting them to produce redacted copies of billing statements to those who filed the lawsuits.
“The billing statements are relevant, and defendants have not demonstrated that their proposed redactions are narrowly tailored or that they would suffer specific, significant competitive harm if unredacted copes are produced under the Attorneys Eyes Only provision of the blanket protective order entered in this action,” wrote the Judge.
The lawsuit accused the two energy firms of violating the Kansas Consumer Protection Act by “unconscionably raising the price of natural gas sold to plaintiffs through distributors, including Symmetry Energy Solutions during Winter Storm Uri in February, 2021.”
Symmetry is one of two energy firms sued by Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond and accused of manipulating natural gas prices during the storm. The lawsuit was filed in April 2024 in Osage County District Court. Symmetry denies it took actions during the storm to decrease public supply by storing gas instead of selling it and raising the price of gas to the GRDA.
In the Kansas lawsuit, Concord Energy and Spotlight Energy provided redacted information claiming the material was “irrelevant and contains trade secrets, confidential commercial information, and/or proprietary pricing information.”
Judge Mitchell found otherwise and wrote, “The unredacted versions show the price of gas defendants sold elsewhere and the cost they paid to acquire it, which then permits plaintiffs to compare the information with the same information for gas sold in Kansas.”
The Judge also said it appears that some of the redacted information is “at least to some extent,” already publicly available.
“Accordingly, defendants have not demonstrated good cause for a protective order to allow them to maintain the redactions.”