The US Solicitor General just sided with the little guy in a major utility fight. (Utility Dive)
The beef: The government argues Duke Energy ran a "coordinated campaign" to crush rival NTE Energy by using its monopoly weight to hamstring the competitor before it could get to wholesale customers.
The receipt: The filing claims Duke went so far as to offer the city of Fayetteville a staggering $325M incentive package (which it planned to recoup later via rate hikes) specifically to bribe them out of signing a deal with the newcomer.
The precedent: The lower court relied on a "monopoly broth" theory—basically ruling that, while Duke's individual tactics might have been legal in isolation, mixing them all together created an illegal stew of anticompetitive behavior.