A Dallas retail electricity provider is refunding money to customers after several complained to regulators that a surcharge added in October was improperly assessed.
In October, Ambit Energy added a "Power Cost Recovery Factor" charge, saying it was needed to cover higher costs incurred to line up summer power supplies for its customers. About that time, the Texas Public Utility Commission was debating whether to raise the regulatory ceiling on wholesale power prices; the agency ultimately approved a 50 percent increase in the cap.Customers with fixed-rate plans said Ambit had no right to assess a surcharge, and the PUC agreed.On its current bills, Ambit says the PUC "did not mandate an increase in prices" and notes that "during the period in question, the former price cap was never exceeded."The company's power cost recovery factor was not allowed under PUC rules, Ambit says, so "Ambit is providing a refund for the PCRF charges."The move follows talks between Ambit and regulators at the PUC. The refunds are on current bills, which carry a statement that corrects the company's earlier description of the agency's actions leading to the surcharge.On the October bills, Ambit had said the PUC "imposed" the price increase and the company planned to recover its expenses.The company's latest action "is consistent with what staff and Ambit have been working toward the past few weeks," PUC spokesman Terry Hadley said Friday. "Staff is still monitoring this and anticipates Ambit will carry out these refunds to customers," he said.An Ambit official didn't respond to requests for comment on Friday.Asked if Ambit might still face a penalty or fine, Hadley said any enforcement action would be preceded by a public notice. "That has not happened at this point," he said.Class action status forLife Partners lawsuitA Dallas district court recently handed some bad news to Life Partners, a Waco firm that buys unwanted life insurance policies from the elderly and resells portions of them to investors.Judge Gena Slaughter of the 191st District Court has granted class-action status to a lawsuit filed in March 2011 by a Dallas County investor named Helen Z. McDermott.When an insured person dies, the policy pays out to the investors who bought the coverage. But McDermott says she did not receive refunds of escrowed payments made to keep the policies active.Life Partners, which denies the assertion, informed Slaughter last week that it would appeal her Nov. 20 decision approving a class action.In federal securities filings, its publicly-traded parent corporation -- Life Partners Holdings -- has cautioned shareholders that defending civil suits like McDermott's could be costly, but that it expects to prevail. Its stock has lost more than half its value in the past 12 months, falling from $6.57 to just over $3.Last summer, the Waco firm won a case brought by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott when an Austin judge found that Life Partners did not trade in securities, as alleged by Abbott and the Texas State Securities Board, but in insurance policies as Life Partners has long argued.The firm had won a similar case brought years earlier by the Securities and Exchange Commission. But the Fort Worth office of the SEC came back in January with a new set of allegations involving insider trading on the part of top Life Partners executives.CEO Brian Pardo and President R. Scott Peden deny the allegations, including claims that they profited by having knowingly relied on a Nevada doctor's frequently inaccurate predictions of how long an insured person would live. Far more conservative life expectancy estimates, provided when Life Partners acquired the policies, for years were not shared with investors.Meanwhile, McDermott's attorneys -- Heygood, Orr & Pearson -- are making a cottage industry out of suing Life Partners. The Dallas lawyers have filed another case that alleges that investors were obliged to pay more than the minimum premiums necessary to keep the life insurance policies active.Troops' families get ride on holiday trainBNSF Railway treated families of U.S. service members to a special Holiday Express train trip in Fort Worth on Nov. 30, and also donated $20,000 to two organizations supporting service members.The approximately 90-minute train ride aboard vintage passenger cars decorated for the holidays started in the Fort Worth Stockyards. It was just one stop for the Holiday Express on a 13-day trip through Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arizona, during which Fort Worth-based BNSF will donate $110,000 to military support groups.It's the fifth year for the Holiday Express, and in that time the BNSF Foundation has donated more than $300,000 to groups helping service members and their families, the company says. This year, the foundation gave $10,000 each to Navy Marine Corps Relief and to the Veterans Coalition of Tarrant County.BNSF is also an active recruiter of returning veterans for jobs at the Fort Worth-based railroad, which is owned by Berkshire Hathaway.Sandra Baker, 817-390-7727sabaker@star-telegram.comJim Fuquay, 817-390-7552jfuquay@star-telegram.comBarry Shlachter, 817-390-7718barry@star-telegram.comHave more to add? News tip? Tell us
