John Morris is a leading expert on competition and price formation in the energy industry. He has provided competition studies and testimony on many of the largest electric utility and natural gas mergers over the past 20 years. In addition, he has given expert testimony in complicated energy disputes, including allegations of market power abuse in California in 2000 and 2001 and claims that Energy Transfer Partners manipulated natural gas prices at the Houston Ship Channel in 2005. 

While working at the Federal Trade Commission from 1985 to 1991, Dr. Morris worked on more than a dozen natural gas pipeline matters, including Occidental Petroleum’s purchase of MidCon, Arkla’s purchase of Entex, and Panhandle Eastern’s acquisition of Texas Eastern. In addition, he provided expert testimony for the Federal Trade Commission in West Texas Transmission L.P. v. Enron Corp. et al. 

Since then, Dr. Morris has advised Secretariat’s corporate and law firm clients on a wide range of natural gas and electric power transactions. For example, he has consultant or testified on the Vistra/Dynegy, Entergy/Entegra, PPL/Riverstone (Talen), WEC/Integrys (WEC Energy Group), Berkshire Hathaway/NV Energy, NRG/Edison Mission Energy, Exelon/Pepco Holdings, Duke/Progress, Exelon/Constellation, FirstEnergy/Allegheny Energy, Dominion/U.S. Gen, Pacific Enterprises/Enova (Sempra), and AEP/CSW mergers. He has consulted merging parties on most of the large electric utility mergers in the United States. He also consults on natural gas mergers including advising the parties in Entergy Transfer’s acquisition of Enable Midstream Partners.

Dr. Morris has provided testimony on  He has testified concerning the major issues facing the energy industry today, including:

• Competitive effects of market-based rates for electric utilities, natural gas storage facilities, and oil pipelines,
• Mergers of coal mining companies,
• The conduct of regulated companies and unregulated affiliates,
• Price formation in electric power and natural gas markets,
• Allegations of price manipulation,
• Modeling the competitive effects of electric utility mergers,
• Competition in energy retailing,
• The cost of capital, rates of return from new transmission facilities,
• Local distribution company credit requirements, and
• Real-time pricing.

He has also examined competition in the petroleum industry, including production, transportation, refinery, and retailing segments. 

At the Federal Trade Commission, Dr. Morris was Assistant to the Director for Antitrust, Bureau of Economics, and also served as a commissioner advisor and a staff economist. He has taught at Indiana University and at Stanford University’s Washington, D.C. campus. He was formerly the Chair of the Energy Bar Association’s Antitrust Committee and has been invited to speak before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, and the Federal Trade Commission. His publications include articles in journals such as the Antitrust Bulletin, the Journal of Regulatory Economics, the Electricity Journal, and Public Utilities Fortnightly.