AQUILA, INC. v. Superior Court

This writ proceeding arises out of a number of coordinated antitrust actions brought by a group of independent plaintiffs, the City and County of San Francisco et al. (plaintiffs), in which plaintiffs seek to establish a conspiracy by various energy-related defendants to manipulate prices in the retail natural gas market in California. (Bus. & Prof. Code, § 16700 et seq.) Plaintiffs sued, among others, defendant and petitioner Aquila, Inc. (Aquila), a publicly regulated utility operating in the Midwest, asserting that it participated in manipulating the price of natural gas in California by falsely reporting natural gas trades to price indices and engaging in wash trades.

Aquila brought a motion to quash service of summons, challenging the trial court’s exercise of personal jurisdiction over it for lack of sufficient ties to California, asserting that instead, all the alleged minimum contacts claimed by plaintiffs were actually carried out by its independent subsidiary companies, not Aquila (e.g., Aquila Merchant Services, Inc., known as AMS). The motion to quash was denied, as the trial court found a sufficient basis for specific jurisdiction under the theory that…