Electric Utilities and Power Markets

For over a century, Hunton Andrews Kurth has represented electric utilities and other power market participants. Our lawyers provide experienced counsel and support to advance the key business objectives of our electric sector clients. We regularly represent clients in both routine and contested federal and state regulatory proceedings and provide regulatory guidance to support a variety of commercial transactions, including mergers, acquisitions and financings, as well as asset transfers and other corporate transactions. We also assist clients by drawing upon and coordinating closely with the firm’s substantial resources across a range of complementary practice areas, including project development, environmental, litigation, labor and employment, corporate finance, capital markets and tax.

We work closely with our clients to help them understand, shape and comply with the many laws and regulations affecting their businesses. Our attorneys are active before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) and the regional reliability entities and multiple state utility commissions across the country.  We regularly represent clients in litigated rate cases, corporate change-in-control proceedings, permitting applications, asset transfers, rulemakings and tariff disputes. Currently, firm attorneys are representing electric utility clients and other power market participants in litigated proceedings and matters before multiple federal and state regulatory bodies. We also have extensive experience with matters involving regulatory compliance plan development, internal training, and audit defense, including defense associated with NERC’s Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) standards.

In addition to traditional electric utilities, we have represented ISOs and RTOs, independent transmission developers, wholesale power generators, marketers and other participants in the competitive wholesale electric markets. In this capacity, we regularly advise on wholesale electric market design and administration, market power monitoring and mitigation, open access transmission service, transmission planning and development, interconnection and electric reliability, as well as all related litigation, compliance and transactional matters.

Our lawyers are also an integral part of the firm’s Energy Sector Security Team and assist clients in protecting the security and resilience of their critical infrastructure facilities in the face of physical and cyber threats. In this capacity, we assist clients with a range of preparedness measures to mitigate physical and cyber security risks, strategic engagement with key government agencies and responses to physical and cyber incidents.

Natural Gas Utilities and Pipelines

Hunton Andrews Kurth lawyers have represented clients in the oil and natural gas industries for over a century. Complex and changing sets of federal and state regulatory laws govern these industries and we have been, and continue to be, trusted counselors to our clients in all matters in which these laws are relevant. To help our clients not only satisfy these requirements, but remain competitive, our lawyers offer comprehensive counsel to clients facing all manner of oversight and regulatory compliance challenges.

As counselors to domestic and international oil and gas leaders, we use our experience in all facets of the oil and gas industry to guide a range of clients. We guide and advocate clients’ interests before federal governing bodies such as FERC and the U.S. Departments of Commerce, Energy and Interior. We are also enlisted to represent clients on a regular basis before state regulatory bodies, with experience before agencies such as the Railroad Commission of Texas, the Virginia State Corporation Commission, the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources and the Regulatory Commission of Alaska.

Our clients are active in all segments of the oil and gas value chain. They include not only interstate and intrastate pipelines, but also energy producers, developers, gathering and storage companies, marketing companies, local distribution companies and liquefied natural gas (LNG) developers. We are privileged to provide these clients with representation and counseling in all facets of their businesses, from standard operations, to representation in transformational transactions, to litigation before regulatory agencies and state and federal courts.

A cornerstone of our experience includes working with clients on matters involving the Natural Gas Act (NGA), Natural Gas Policy Act (NGPA), the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, the Pipeline Safety Act and the Interstate Commerce Act, as well as the associated regulations implementing these regulations. Our lawyers’ long-established practices before decision-making authorities and agencies provide a foundation for us to advise clients on preventing problems as well as resolving them should inquiries or investigations arise.

Our firm’s prominent national reputation as counselors on issues involving regulation of the natural gas industry is based on decades of achievement in pipeline proceedings. We have extensive experience in the wide range of issues that affect regulated natural gas pipelines, including issues associated with rate regulation, tariffs, certificates, abandonment, capacity release requirements, audits, enforcement and related compliance and contractual issues.