John N. Estes

John Estes heads Skadden’s Energy Regulation and Litigation Group. He focuses on FERC enforcement and litigation at the agency and on judicial review. Mr. Estes has defended many of the FERC enforcement cases involving electric and natural gas market manipulation allegations that have become public, including representing Barclays Bank PLC, JP Morgan Ventures Energy Corp., DB Energy Trading, LLC, Rumford Paper Company, and Dr. Alan Chen.

He previously defended Energy Transfer Partners in one of the first FERC market manipulation cases, which settled on favorable terms on the eve of trial. He defended H.Q. (United States) in the first complaint case claiming market manipulation. He also has navigated many nonpublic FERC enforcement cases to conclusion without sanction.

In addition, Mr. Estes often has played a lead role in complex FERC cases at trial, typically involving market design, market power or market manipulation issues in organized electric markets. Representative FERC trials include:

• Dynegy in the first two trials in the protracted and highly complex “California Refund Case,” and Aquila and Illinova in the third trial in that case;
• a large coalition of generators in the bitterly fought New England “LICAP” case involving capacity markets;
• Exelon in groundbreaking litigation involving whether FERC should exempt AEP from certain state laws that were preventing AEP from joining PJM; and

He also has played a lead role in numerous agency cases that stopped short of trial, including representing generators in a series of disputes over capacity markets spanning more than a decade.

His experience advising clients and litigating disputes regarding organized electric markets dates back approximately 20 years, when those markets were in their infancy. In addition, he has decades of experience handling the energy regulatory aspects of transactional matters.

Education:

• J.D., Louisiana State University, 1983
• B.A., Tulane University, 1979

Admissions : District of Columbia