Florida Times-Union by David Bauerlein
February 20, 2020
NextEra Energy, Duke Energy and American Water Works joined forces in a suit aimed at blocking JEA from publicly releasing the dollar amounts they used in making offers to buy all or part of the utility.
NextEra Energy and two other firms that bid for JEA are taking legal action to block the utility from releasing information about how many billions of dollars each company offered for JEA.
The lawsuit, which the companies filed Thursday, will shift the decision to the courtroom on whether the public can learn the full range of offers that were on the table when the JEA board voted in December to kill the sales negotiations.
NextEra Energy, which is the parent company of Florida Power & Light, joined forces with Duke Energy and American Water Works Company in the suit.
Three other bidders that were still in the running when the sales process ended have not objected to JEA releasing the dollar amounts of their responses. Of those firms, Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets submitted the biggest offer at $9 billion for JEA’s electric, water and wastewater operations.
The city would have netted $4.7 billion to $5.2 billion in a deal with Macquarie after using the sales proceeds to pay off existing JEA debt and handle other requirements of a sale, according to Macquarie’s response given to JEA in November.
Other offers could have been even higher.