Electric Bond and Share Company
Following the passage of the Act, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) selected the largest of the U.S. holding companies, Ebasco to be the test case of the law before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The court case known as Securities and Exchange Commission v. Electric Bond and Share company was settled in favor of the SEC on March 28, 1938.
[1] It took twenty-five years of legal action by the SEC to break up Ebasco and the other major U.S. electric holding companies until they conformed with the 1935 act.
After its reorganization, it became an investment company, but soon turned into a major designer and engineer of both fossil fuel and nuclear power electric generation facilities.
It carried out extensive investigations and debates among prominent business men and organized labor over the issue of public vs. private ownership of electric power.
Insull's public support for regulation helped popularize NCF's model legislation that quickly spread nationwide after the state of New York adopted its own variation.
[5] As public concern continued to mount by ratepayers of private electric power companies, the Federal Trade Commission[6] carried out extensive investigations between 1928 and 1935.
Because he was a strong proponent of public power, Franklin D. Roosevelt used the collapse of Samuel Insull's Middle West Utilities electric empire in June 1932[2] as one of his most important election campaign issues.
[7] The failed assassination attempt on his life in February 1933 later became part of U.S. Marine Corps General Smedley Butler's claim of a Business Plot against Roosevelt by J. P. Morgan.
The May 24th, 1933 Pecora hearings rocked the country, focusing on J.P. Morgan and his financial empire, whose top lieutenants paid no taxes.
In his 1939 book Wall Street Under Oath: The Story of Our Modern Money Changers, Ferdinand Pecora stated that "Undoubtedly, this small group of highly placed financiers, controlling the very springs of economic activity, holds more real power than any similar group in the United States.
"[11] The 1933 Pecora Commission hearings identified the National City Company, known today as Citibank, as the location where Morgan conducted EBASCo's investment operations, which played a prominent role in the passage of the Glass–Steagall legislation.
[12]" Following the act's passage, Ebasco sued the United States government[13] claiming it was unconstitutional, but lost the case before the Supreme Court in 1938.
Wendell Willkie, who was the president of one of J.P. Morgan and Ebasco's biggest investments, known as the Southern Company, ran against Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1940 presidential race, but lost.
[14]Following the passage of the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) oversaw the closure, re-organization or divestment of EBASCo's holding companies except for its American & Foreign Power Co., making annual reports on its monumental legal breakup case between 1936 and 1961.
In its 1949 annual report,[15] the SEC documented the history of their order for EBASCo to break up its five major holding companies' combined assets worth $3.5 billion.
On March 22, 1949, the SEC signed off on the final breakup of National that included major holdings in Pennsylvania PPL Corporation, the Carolinas and Alabama (see subsidiary list).
Electric Power and its sub-holding company United Gas Corporation finally agreed to its breakup on March 2, 1949.
This was followed in 1922 by a dramatic burst of purchasing across central and South America that was followed the next year by the formation of the American & Foreign Power Company.
The U. S. allowed Cuba to be independent, but required it to operate under the Platt Amendment of 1901, turning it into an exclusive U.S. plantation colony with its sugar exports only allowed to be marketed in the U.S. Business interests deployed a combination of Scientific racism and Scientific management practices that left the country exclusively in the hands of American companies.
American & Foreign Power Company also had operations in the following countries: With the election of President Eisenhower in 1952 as the first republican to hold office in 20 years, a major policy shift called "no new starts"[26] began.
The scale of this policy shift was exposed with the Dixon-Yates affair, identifying the plan's source as the Pacific Gas & Electric Company.
[10] PG&E was known for getting conservative politicians to kill all funding to the massive Central Valley Project's grid, forcing the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to rely on the company to deliver the electricity.
Following the release of a secret report by industry insiders meant only for the president's eyes, Eisenhower was forced to cancel the contract on July 11, 1955.
[29] In 1967, Electric Bond and Share merged with its former holding company, the American & Foreign Power Co. and was renamed Ebasco Industries the following year.
[39] Ebasco's involvement with the financial collapse of the Washington Public Power Supply System's (WPPSS) massive five nuclear reactors [40] led to a lawsuit against the company in 1992 over asbestos contamination.
[44] The Raytheon subsidiary, Raytheon Engineers & Constructors that owned Ebasco Services was later sold to Morrison Knudsen Corporation where the combined company was named the Washington Group International, Inc., a firm with more than $5 billion in annual revenues and a backlog of some $6.6 billion, marking it one of the largest in the engineering and construction industry at that time with more than 38,000 employees at work in more than 40 countries.
Following the 2007 takeover of TXU Corp.,[50] which included plans to construct two new next generation nuclear power stations at Commanche Peak, the company eventually ran into further financial difficulties and filed for bankruptcy in 2014.
[59] In addition, The law firm of Reid and Priest used to be part of the army of lawyers[60] that failed to stop Ebasco from being dismantled.
