William Scherman, a lawyer at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, writes in the Wall St. Journal : “The subjects of investigations by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, are rarely willing to speak out publicly. Some stay silent, wrongly believing that by cooperating they might convince regulators to leave them alone. Others stay silent because they know they will have to continue to deal with their regulators after the investigation. But Kevin and Richard Gates recently spoke out publicly against FERC, detailing their tribulations during a three-year probe. Having represented dozens of clients under investigation by FERC, we know the Gateses’ experience is the tip of the iceberg.”  

“In the Energy Law Journal, we recently revealed numerous due process and substantive infirmities in FERC enforcement, some for the first time publicly. Unless these institutional and systemic defects are cured by FERC or the courts, the energy markets that FERC has long sought to promote and foster may be irreparably harmed.”