Regulating Mergers and Acquisitions of U.S. Electric Utilities: Industry Concentration and Corporate Complication

What happens when electric utility monopolies pursue their acquisition interests undisciplined by competition, and insufficiently disciplined by the regulators responsible for replicating competition? Since the mid-1980s, mergers and acquisitions of U.S. electric utilities have halved the number of local, independent utilities. Mostly debt-financed, these transactions have converted retiree-suitable investments into subsidiaries of geographically scattered conglomerates.

Written by one of the U.S.'s leading regulatory thinkers--a litigating attorney, regulatory advisor, expert witness and law professor--this book combines legal, accounting, economic and financial analysis with insights from the dynamic field of behavioral economics. With a clear assessment of the 30-year march of U.S. electricity mergers, the author describes the economic losses that result when merger promoters and their transactions face neither the discipline of competition nor the rigors of regulation.

This work is essential reading for regulatory practitioners, consumer advocates and investment advisors--as well as citizens concerned with concentration of economic power. The principles explored are relevant anywhere regulated utility monopolies have the legal right to merge, acquire or be acquired.

Scott Hempling, attorney, and adjunct professor, Georgetown University Law Center, US