The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit from a company that it cancelled a $5.9 billion contract for temporary power generation or to shift the case to the Title III bankruptcy proceedings overseen by District Court Judge Laura Taylor Swain.
Power Expectations, one of three companies contracted to provide power generation, filed the case in Puerto Rico District Court in early September. PREPA on Friday said Power Expectations had described the case as related to the bankruptcy and yet failed to file it as a Title III matter, as it should have.
In mid-August the
In its early September lawsuit, Power Expectation said it planned to provide the bond on a timely basis and had communicated extensively with the authority on the topic.
While the board complained about Power Expectations' signing the contract without its parent company's approval, the parent company had given it exclusive power to make decisions about its Puerto Rico operations, Power Expectations said in its suit.
Puerto Rico-based Attorney John Mudd said he expects Puerto Rico District Court Judge Raul Arias-Marxuach to give the case to Swain. Since the Oversight Board isn't a party to the case, Mudd said, there could be complications.
In other PREPA news, New Fortress Energy, the parent of
PREPA is largely relegated to being the legal issuer and owner of the power system's debt.
In the restructuring, New Fortress was split into BrazilCo and New NFE, with the latter overseeing Genera PR's operations. New NFE has $571 million of term loans and has gained $136 million in new financing.
New NFE didn't respond to a request for a comment.
Separately, Genera PR told the Puerto Rico Energy Bureau it didn't know why half of its 14 temporary electric generation units were not working. The bureau plans to hold a hearing on the units' breakdowns Tuesday.
Puerto Rico's electrical system has continued to be plagued by electric outages in recent years, partly because of a lack of generating units.
