Legal Library: Cases and Proceedings

Enterprise Products Partners L.P. settled charges that its $1.1 billion acquisition of TEPPCO Partners’ NGLs salt dome storage businesses would likely result in higher prices and service degradations by reducing the number of commercial salt dome NGL storage providers in Mont Belvieu, Texas, from four to three. The FTC’s order required TEPPCO to divest its interests in the world’s largest NGL storage facility in Mont Belvieu, Texas, to an FTC-approved buyer.

The order settles charges that the proposed $22 billion deal whereby energy transportation, storage, and distribution firm Kinder Morgan, Inc. (KMI) would be taken private by KMI management and a group of investment firms, including private equity funds managed and controlled by The Carlyle Group (Carlyle) and Riverstone Holdings LLC (Riverstone) would threaten competition between KMI and Magellan in eleven metropolitan areas in the Southeast, likely resulting in higher prices for gasoline and other light petroleum products. The order requires that Carlyle’s and Riverstone’s interest in Magellan become a passive investment, by requiring them to: (1) removing all of their representatives from the Magellan Board of Managers and its boards of directors, (2) ceding control of Magellan to its other principal investor, Madison Dearborn Partners, and (3) not influencing or attempting to influence the management or operation of Magellan.