TXU continued to own transmission and distribution facilities, but was required to open retail sales to competition.

[15] Falling UK energy prices (which later rose substantially) and outstanding purchase debt eventually crippled the European business.

TXU sold its Australian assets to Singapore Power, which retained the distribution businesses (electricity and natural gas distribution networks) in the state of Victoria, and onsold the electricity retail and generation businesses to Hong-Kong-based CLP Group, trading as TRUenergy.

The buyout, which left Dallas-based Energy Future with a debt of more than $40 billion, was a gamble that natural gas prices would rise and give its coal-fired plants a competitive advantage.

[16] Consequently, Energy Future Holdings was mired in financial problems, leading to the April 29, 2014 filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

[1] The upcoming maturity of a significant amount of debt, coupled with sizable financial losses, had many observers predicting that EFH will ultimately file for bankruptcy,[17] which it did on April 29, 2014.

The prominent credit-rating firm Moody's had called EFH "a financially distressed company with an untenable capital structure.

[19] Energy Future Holdings owns, and has closed the mines for, four of the nation's highest emitting coal-fired power plants, which together account for approximately one quarter of all industrial/utility air pollution reported to Texas regulators.

The Martin Lake, Big Brown, and Monticello plants ranked first, third, and fourth, respectively, in airborne mercury pollution in the United States according to company reports submitted to the EPA.

[20] EFH and its Luminant subsidiary are the subject of litigation by the Sierra Club for alleged violations of the Clean Air Act at the Big Brown Plant, and in 2013 a federal district court judge ruled in favor of Sierra Club on a motion by EFH to stop or slow the case from coming to trial.

Some have suggested that Luminant only sued over property appraisals for coal plant sites that will require pollution upgrades or changes in the near future.