Is it reasonable to expect that Enron as well as Peoples will be involved in 
the preliminary meetings?




"Boyd J. Springer" <bjspringer@JonesDay.com> on 11/21/2000 09:13:34 AM
To: Gregg.Penman@enron.com
cc: kay.mann@enron.com 

Subject: Re: Master Sales


Assuming there is no third party intervention, the approval time will
depend entirely on Staff's approach. In the last year, I handled one
affiliated interest agreement approval, which required only five weeks from
filing to the time of the Order. Staff viewed the agreement as
non-contoversial and wanted to dispose of the matter quickly. In another
case, with staff copperation, the time from filing to approval (expected
today), was nine weeks. On the other hand, when staff perceives an actual
or potential issue, cases can drag on for months. I am handling one
approval proceeding (involving acquisition of a small water utility system)
which is expected to require about nine months to complete. In that case,
staff argued that it needed 3-4 months to complete discoverey and prepare
its direct evidence. Time was also included for two separate rounds of
testimony (which is standard at the ICC), the hearing, briefing, issuance
of Examiner's order, and filing of Exceptions and Replies. If Staff seeks
to schedule all of the available procedural steps (which it can do if it so
chooses), it is difficult to complete a case of this type in less than 6
months. A realistic time frame for a contested case would be 5-9 months. To
avoid this, it is important to meet with the staff early on and resolve
their concerns informally. This should be done, if possible, before the
first scheduling conference (likely to be held about 3 weeks after the
Petition is filed). If agreement is not reached beofre the first conference
with the Hearing Examioner, the established schedule for the case should
build in one or more early status conferences which provide the opportunity
to present a settlement and resolve the matter at an early stage.

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