Energy and Commodities Trading

Antitrust and Market-Manipulation Counsel for Energy and Commodities Markets

Bona Law represents companies across energy and commodities markets — producers and refiners, fuel retailers and distributors, commodity trading and merchant firms, utilities and independent power producers, and energy-technology and market-data platforms. We counsel on antitrust risk in trading, pricing, and information-sharing practices; defend companies in antitrust class actions and MDLs, government investigations, and state attorney general enforcement actions; prosecute antitrust litigation for corporate plaintiffs harmed by monopolists; challenge anticompetitive government action that distorts energy markets; and handle merger clearance in energy transactions, coordinating with specialist regulatory counsel where FERC or CFTC proceedings run in parallel. And we have done something no other antitrust boutique in the country can claim: a state attorney general retained Bona Law as outside trial counsel to prosecute global gasoline trading firms for commodity-index manipulation.

The practice is anchored by partners whose careers map the sector's antitrust exposure from every side. Pat Pascarella (Dallas) led the Bona Law trial team for the California Attorney General in People v. Vitol and previously served as Chief Antitrust Counsel at AT&T. Paul Moore (San Diego) was the State of California's senior counsel on Vitol as a senior Deputy Attorney General — and led California v. Valero Energy Corp. / Plains All American Pipeline, the government's successful challenge to a vertical merger in gasoline logistics — before joining Bona Law. Steve Cernak (Detroit) spent twenty years as in-house antitrust counsel at General Motors, wrote the book on distribution antitrust, Antitrust in Distribution and Franchising (LexisNexis), and designs the compliance programs and information-exchange protocols that trading firms, fuel retailers, and commodity-intensive manufacturers actually run. And Jon Cieslak (San Diego) led Lucasys, Inc. v. PowerPlan, Inc., the Section 2 challenge to a utility-software monopolist that resolved with a $24 million settlement and injunctive relief.


Featured Engagement: Prosecuting Commodity-Index Manipulation for the State of California

People v. Vitol Inc., et al. — After a 2015 explosion disabled the Torrance refinery and disrupted California's gasoline supply, the California Department of Justice sued global gasoline trading firms Vitol Inc., SK Energy Americas, and SK Trading International, alleging they exploited the disruption to manipulate the price indices that set what Californians pay at the pump — conduct spanning futures trading on the gasoline spot market, interactions with price-reporting agencies, and the structure of the U.S. refined-products market — in violation of California's Cartwright Act and Unfair Competition Law. The Attorney General's Office retained Bona Law as outside trial counsel, with Pat Pascarella leading the Bona Law team, and Paul Moore, then a senior Deputy Attorney General, as the State's senior counsel before joining Bona Law. The matter resolved in a strong settlement for the State of California, and the experience now informs our practice.


Other Representative Experience

Lucasys, Inc. v. PowerPlan, Inc. (N.D. Ga.). Section 2 monopolization action for Lucasys, an energy-software challenger, against the incumbent controlling approximately 99% of the utility-management software market used by rate-regulated utilities. After the court denied PowerPlan's motion to dismiss and more than four years of litigation, the case resolved with a $24 million settlement plus injunctive relief protecting Lucasys's utility customers.

Egg-Producer State Price-Gouging Class Actions (multiple federal courts). Defense of a major egg producer in class actions alleging violations of state price-gouging laws during periods of supply disruption — the same statutory regimes now being aimed at fuel retailers and refiners — defending pricing practices across overlapping state-law frameworks.

Chase Manufacturing (Thermal Pipe Shields) v. Johns Manville (D. Colo.; Tenth Circuit). Section 2 monopolization case in mechanical insulation for energy and industrial facilities, producing a published Tenth Circuit decision reversing summary judgment.

Energy and financial-markets cartel defense. Before joining Bona Law, our lawyers held defense roles in In re Wholesale Electricity Antitrust Litigation and In re Municipal Derivatives Antitrust Litigation, and in other landmark cartel MDLs including In re Vitamins, In re Amino Acid Lysine, In re Citric Acid, In re Cathode Ray Tubes, In re Lithium Ion Batteries, and In re Automotive Parts.

Antitrust compliance and information-exchange counseling for companies in commodity-intensive industries — pricing programs, benchmarking, trade-association participation, and competitor-collaboration protocols.


Recent Developments

Energy antitrust is moving faster in 2026 than at any point in a decade. The July 3, 2026 DOJ/FTC call to action asks the nation's state attorneys general to investigate petroleum and retail gasoline pricing under state antitrust, consumer-protection, and price-gouging laws and reminds the market that federal enforcers are watching crude-to-pump pass-through in real time. In June 2026, private plaintiffs filed one of the first major algorithmic-pricing class actions in fuel retail, alleging that shared AI pricing software coordinated prices across more than 1,700 California stations under the Cartwright Act as amended by AB 325 — the doctrinal line our lawyers have tracked since the first RealPage cases (see Luis Blanquez's algorithmic-pricing series: Part 1 and Part 2). And beginning January 1, 2027, the California Uniform Antitrust Premerger Notification Act adds a state-level filing to federal HSR for transactions with California nexus — see this practical compliance checklist from Paul Moore and Steve Cernak. For ongoing analysis, see the blog's Energy and Commodities Trading category and Inside State Enforcement.


The Opportunity — and the Antitrust Risk

Energy and commodities markets concentrate everything antitrust law cares about: essential products, inelastic demand, transparent posted prices, index-driven contracts, and a small number of sophisticated intermediaries. Where antitrust risk arises:

  • Index and benchmark manipulation. Trading conduct that moves price-reporting-agency assessments, spot benchmarks, or index-linked contract prices draws state antitrust claims (the People v. Vitol pattern), Sherman Act claims, and parallel CFTC/FERC exposure.
  • State price-gouging statutes. Emergency declarations trigger price caps and margin rules that vary state by state; supply disruptions put refiners, distributors, and retailers into overlapping regimes overnight — now with state attorneys general invited by federal enforcers to act. See Can a Manufacturer Stop Price Gouging by Its Dealers During a Crisis?
  • Algorithmic and shared-software pricing. The RealPage line of cases, the Ninth Circuit's Gibson v. Cendyn decision, and California AB 325 separate lawful use of pricing tools from unlawful pooling of nonpublic competitor data. Fuel retail is the newest front; any commodity market with shared pricing software is in the risk zone. Our lawyers' algorithmic-pricing analysis tracks major cases.
  • Cartel and information-exchange exposure. Trader communications, benchmarking groups, capacity announcements, and trade-association activity in concentrated commodity markets remain classic Sherman Act Section 1 terrain — and the DOJ's whistleblower-rewards program raises detection risk. See Best Antitrust Practices for Exchanging Competitive Information via Third Parties.
  • Monopolization and monopsony. Dominant platforms in energy software and market data, control of midstream infrastructure, and buyer power over producers all sit in the Sherman Act Section 2 zone — on both the defense side and the corporate-plaintiff side. See the elements of a monopolization claim.
  • Regulated-market defenses and government-created distortions. The filed-rate doctrine, federal preemption, antitrust exemptions and immunities, and the boundary between FERC/CFTC jurisdiction and antitrust litigation are often the dispositive issues in energy cases. And where a municipality, licensing regime, or state agency itself restrains competition — exclusive utility franchises, discriminatory permitting, agency overreach — our challenges to anticompetitive and unlawful government action practice takes the government on directly.
  • False advertising in energy markets. Environmental and sustainability marketing claims, fuel-performance and additive claims, and “clean energy” representations increasingly draw competitor Lanham Act suits and government UCL/FAL enforcement. Our Lanham Act and False Advertising practice prosecutes and defends these disputes and defends companies against government false-advertising enforcement.
  • Mergers and acquisitions. Energy deals face HSR review, state review (including California's new premerger filing regime from January 2027), FERC approvals, and, as California v. Valero Energy Corp. / Plains All American showed, vertical theories of harm that agencies are willing to litigate.
  • State attorney general enforcement. Energy pricing is a permanent state-AG priority, with California's expanded antitrust division at the front. AGs increasingly retain private counsel for major matters and increasingly coordinate multistate.
  • No-poach and labor markets. Trading desks, schedulers, and technical staff are covered by the same no-poach and wage-fixing enforcement the DOJ treats as per se illegal.


How We Help Energy and Commodities Clients

  • Market-manipulation and antitrust litigation — prosecuting and defending index-manipulation, price-fixing, and exclusionary-conduct claims in energy and commodity markets, including for and against government enforcers.
  • State attorney general matters — both directions. We have served as outside trial counsel to the California Attorney General in commodity-market manipulation litigation (People v. Vitol), and we defend companies in state AG investigations and enforcement actions. Paul Moore joined Bona Law directly from the California Attorney General's office.
  • Class action and MDL defense — price-fixing, price-gouging, and algorithmic-pricing class actions, as lead counsel or through our Antitrust Co-Counsel service alongside existing defense teams.
  • Antitrust counseling for trading and pricing conduct — information exchange, benchmarking, price-reporting interactions, trader-communication protocols, joint ventures, and tolling and offtake arrangements.
  • Algorithmic-pricing review — design-level antitrust review of pricing software and data feeds against the RealPage / Cendyn line, California AB 325, and Section 1 information-exchange doctrine.
  • Price-gouging compliance and defense — multistate exposure mapping, emergency-declaration monitoring, and defense of enforcement actions and class claims.
  • Compliance programs — antitrust compliance design, training, and audits for trading firms, fuel retailers, and commodity-intensive manufacturers, built to the standards in the DOJ Antitrust Division’s compliance-program guidance and led by a partner with twenty years of in-house global compliance responsibility.
  • Corporate-plaintiff antitrust litigation — Section 2 and exclusionary-conduct claims for challengers against dominant energy-market incumbents.
  • Challenges to anticompetitive government action — exclusive municipal utility franchises, state agency decisions that entrench incumbents, discriminatory permitting and licensing, and state-action immunity litigation.
  • Lanham Act and false advertising — prosecution and defense of energy and environmental marketing-claim disputes, and defense of government UCL/FAL enforcement actions.
  • Mergers and acquisitions — HSR strategy, the new California premerger filing regime (effective January 1, 2027), state AG engagement, and coordination with EU, UK, and Asia-Pacific counsel on cross-border energy deals through our international competition practice.
  • Investigations — DOJ Antitrust Division and FTC investigations, state AG civil investigative demands, grand-jury matters, and leniency counseling, coordinating with specialist regulatory counsel where FERC or CFTC proceedings run in parallel.
  • Appeals — merits and amicus appellate work in energy and regulated-markets antitrust cases, including published court of appeals wins and U.S. Supreme Court amicus practice.


Why Bona Law for Energy and Commodities Trading

  • We have done the thing others write alerts about. The California Attorney General retained Bona Law to prosecute global gasoline trading firms for commodity-index manipulation.
  • Both sides of the table. We prosecute for governments and corporate plaintiffs, and we defend companies in class actions and investigations. We do not take private plaintiff-side class-action work, so we can defend without competing with our clients' other counsel, and we integrate into existing defense teams through our Antitrust Co-Counsel service.
  • A boutique with BigLaw bench. Our attorneys trained at Gibson Dunn, DLA Piper, Winston & Strawn, White & Case, Dechert, Dewey & LeBoeuf, Orrick, and Cooley; served at the DOJ Antitrust Division and the California Attorney General's office; served as Chief Antitrust Counsel at AT&T and spent twenty years in-house at General Motors; and served at the European Commission's DG-Competition Merger Task Force.
  • Texas presence. Our Dallas office — led by the partner who headed the Vitol trial team — sits in the home market of the U.S. energy industry.
  • Thought leadership that enforcers and in-house counsel actually read. The Antitrust Attorney Blog's Energy and Commodities Trading and algorithmic-pricing coverage, Inside State Enforcement, and more than 120 articles syndicated on Mondaq, where Bona Law authors have won multiple Mondaq Thought Leadership Awards.
  • Recognition. Bona Law has been recognized in the Chambers Spotlight for California and New York, and our attorneys by Super Lawyers, The Best Lawyers in America®, and the Litigation Counsel of America.


Recent Analysis from Bona Law


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Bona Law represents companies across energy and commodities markets in antitrust counseling, compliance, investigations, litigation, and merger review — and serves as outside counsel to government enforcers in select matters. 

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Practice Areas

Antitrust Counseling and Compliance Challenges to Anticompetitive and Unlawful Government Action Investigations Lanham Act and False Advertising Antitrust Class Actions Antitrust Litigation Appellate Litigation General Commercial Litigation Mergers & Acquisitions Regulatory & Political Advocacy State Attorney General Antitrust Agriculture and Food Blockchain and Bitcoin Energy and Commodities Trading Industry-Specific & International Experience