A federal district court in Michigan ordered a reversal of orders the Michigan Public Service Commission had issued restructuring the state’s electric utility industry to the extent the orders jeopardized the ability of Michigan utilities to recover above-market charges for electricity under power purchase agreements with independent power projects. The court said that the federal Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act, or PURPA, and the supremacy clause of the US constitution “preempted” the state public service commission from taking any action contrary to PURPA.

Chadbourne represented two plaintiffs in the case, Midland Cogeneration Venture and Central Wayne Energy Recovery Limited Partnership.

TAX HAVENS ARE EXPECTED TO COME UNDER FIRE next year in reports by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and a special tax force on money laundering of the G-7 countries. The OECD is working on a report, to be issued early next year, on harmful tax competition. The French finance minister called over the summer for an “atomic bomb” approach to tax havens in which countries might “ban all financial transactions with these territories” on grounds that they are “black holes for internationally accepted regulations.”