Two natural gas suppliers fighting lawsuits and investigations of price manipulation allegations stemming from the 2021 Winter Storm Uri in Kansas lost a second federal judge’s decision this week.
Kansas City federal Judge Angel D. Mitchell ruled against the firms who are fighting a consolidated lawsuit by ratepayers to produce the same documents the firms provided to the Kansas Corporation Commission and the Kansas Attorney General in their investigations of natural-gas sales during the storm.
The ratepayers, in their lawsuit claimed the firms violated by Kansas Consumer Protection Act by “unsconsionably raising the price of natural gas sold to distributors during Winter Storm Uri, thereby profiting from a disaster.”
The lawsuit named Concord Energy LLC and Spotlight Energy LLC who oppose also releasing business transaction information that took place outside the state of Kansas.
“Perhaps because defendants mistakenly placed the burden on the plaintiffs to demonstrate revelevance, rather than recognizing thatthe burden falls on them to support their objections, defendants have offered little to demonstrate the irrelevance of plaintiffs’ requests,” wrote the Judge who ordered the firms to produce the documents by January 31, 2025.
Earlier in the week, Judge Mitchell also ordered the firms to reveal information that had been redacted.
