Fallout from the 2021 Winter Storm and ERCOT Outages

Overview

If you live in Texas, chances are good you were personally affected by power outages on the ERCOT grid during the February 2021 winter storm.  The same is certainly true for any business involved in the power or natural gas markets.  Now that the dust has settled a bit and the search for solutions (and compensation) is well underway, this session will address the ERCOT outages and the fallout from every angle: what happened over those five days in February, why it happened, and what’s now happening in the aftermath from a regulatory, legislative, and litigation perspective.  

Diana Liebmann—a partner and Chair of Haynes and Boone’s Power and Renewables Practice—will draw on her deep knowledge of ERCOT and other power regulatory issues to discuss the outages, the financial impacts that rippled throughout the energy sector, the proposed legislative and regulatory solutions that followed, and areas to watch moving forward.  Andrew Guthrie—a partner in Haynes and Boone’s Appellate Practice Group with significant energy litigation experience—will discuss the ever-expanding areas of litigation that have emerged from the outages in both the power and natural gas spaces.

Webinar begins at 12:00 pm CDT
Duration: 1 hour

Speakers

David Ammons
Partner
Haynes and Boone, LLP
Houston, Texas

David Ammons is a commercial trial lawyer with extensive experience handling high-stakes litigation in state, federal, and bankruptcy courts nationwide. Clients value David’s skill at efficiently and effectively resolving their litigation challenges in a manner that squares with their long-term strategic objectives. David has been recognized in the 2020 Legal 500 U.S. directory for his “responsiveness, client attention and practical application of knowledge.”

A significant portion of David’s practice is devoted to representing onshore and offshore oil and gas producers, gas marketing companies, gas pipeline companies, and natural gas liquids processing companies. His experience includes successfully defending major integrated oil and gas companies and large independents in multidistrict and class action cases with multimillions of dollars at stake. He also has handled complex disputes concerning joint operating agreements, purchase and sale agreements, operational issues, and title to oil and gas assets.

In addition to his energy litigation practice, David has represented plaintiffs and defendants in other complex commercial litigation matters, including breach of contract disputes, fiduciary litigation, environmental and toxic tort litigation, and financial litigation. He has particular experience representing companies, hedge funds, and court-appointed trustees in bankruptcy litigation matters.

Andrew Guthrie
Partner, Appellate Practice Group
Haynes and Boone, LLP
Dallas, Texas

As a pastor’s son and former aspiring sportscaster, Andrew Guthrie knows the value of grabbing—and keeping—an audience’s attention. Andrew’s clients appreciate that he brings this skill to their cases, whether in briefs to the appellate court or arguments to the jury. But Andrew also knows that once that attention is earned, substance is paramount. So he works with clients to identify and communicate their most important arguments in a clear, thorough, and ultimately effective way.

Andrew focuses his practice on appeals and critical trial court briefing across an array of subject matters, including business disputes, government investigations, energy, bankruptcy, products liability, intellectual property and the False Claims Act.

Through in-depth analysis of a case’s most important legal and factual questions and his natural ability to clearly communicate those points to a judge or a jury, Andrew consistently provides effective representation to his clients no matter the case or the stage. He was named “Appellate Lawyer of the Week” in February 2016 by Texas Lawyer after successfully arguing a First Amendment case to the Fifth Circuit despite being retained mere weeks before oral argument. Andrew has also been recognized as a “Rising Star” by Texas Super Lawyers (2016-2021); appointed to the State Bar’s Professional Ethics Committee by the Texas Supreme Court; and awarded the 2020 Rosner & Rosner Young Lawyer Professionalism Award from the ABA’s Center for Professional Responsibility.

Diana Liebmann
Partner & Chair of Power and Renawables Practice
Haynes and Boone, LLP
San Antonio, Texas

Diana Liebmann’s legal advocacy and regulatory experience have helped clients through multiple restructurings of the electric power markets in Texas, to create the rules for the evolving ERCOT market. Diana understands the risks inherent in certain transactions under constantly changing market rules and dynamics. She has represented clients in analyzing and structuring power supply arrangements for both wholesale and retail sales, including assisting LNG facilities with structuring power transactions. Diana works on both utility-scale generation project development and with smaller projects including end use consumers on-site and back-up generation. She was instrumental in developing the current postage stamp transmission pricing mechanism in the Competitive Renewable Energy Zone proceedings to obtain access to markets for their generation, and in interconnecting on-site generation both with ERCOT and transmission and distribution utilities.

Diana’s broad transactional experience and in-depth focus on the details of wholesale and retail power regulation and market structure give her the ability to effectively guide clients with respect to structuring transactions, compliance, and in the investment and deployment of capital in electricity markets. Diana is valued as a leading energy lawyer by Chambers USA, Chambers and Partners, and is described as a “utilities guru” with a “great understanding of the Public Utility Commission.” She has become a go-to lawyer for regulatory matters relating to the Public Utility Commission of Texas, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the Southwest Power Pool, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and in various other state commission, regional entity and North American Electric Reliability Corporation proceedings.

CLE Credit

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