By The Paper staff
Defamation lawsuits aren’t easy to win, but if anyone can win them, it’s attorney Elizabeth “Libby” Locke.
She has made a career taking on and winning major defamation lawsuits, most notably as one of two lead attorneys representing Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News in the case that ended in a staggering $787 million for her client.
Fresh from this high-profile case, Locke plunges into the vicious battle between PNM, AVANGRID and the Santa Fe-based advocacy group pushing the fight to stop the merger between the state’s largest utility and an international energy company that has billions in renewable energy want to invest in the magic land.
In a letter from Locke’s company, Clare Locke, to Mariel Nanasi of New Mexico, executive director of the Santa Fe-based advocacy group New Energy Economy, Locke urged Nanasi to “immediately retract and deny the false and defamatory allegations you have made against my client.” correct”. recent radio interview about their efforts to oppose the merger. Locke represents AVANGRID, the company seeking a merger with PNM, and Iberdrola, AVANGRID’s parent company. The letter was sent to Nanasi earlier this week and was reviewed by The Paper on Friday.
According to Locke, on April 14, Nanasi appeared on the radio show Retake our Democracy on KSFR, a local radio station based in Santa Fe. During the show, Nanasi allegedly said that AVANGRID and its parent company Iberdrola “literally bought out judges, bribed judges”. She was not questioned by the interviewer regarding this claim and offered no evidence to support her claim.
Nanasi, as a practicing attorney, should know better than to accuse judges of bribery, says Locke.
For her part, Locke is familiar with a libel suit. In addition to winning a $787 million settlement against Fox News, Locke also won $3 million from Rolling Stone Magazine for the University of Virginia, forcing the magazine to retract his story, which addressed the alleged rape culture in America fraternity system went. She and her husband and law partner have a boutique law firm that specializes in high-profile defamation lawsuits, according to their website.
Nanasi’s New Energy Economy has been a staunch opponent of PNM for years. It has had some success by intervening in regulatory and court cases to deny or amend proposed rate increases before regulators. Late last year, PNM’s application for merger approval was rejected by the PRC, partly based on witness testimony and filings organized by Nanasi. That denial is pending appeal in the State Supreme Court.
Most recently, Nanasi publicly accused PNM and regulators of engaging in secret ex-parte negotiations that would effectively dismiss the appeal and allow the merger to be repeated. Lawyers for the PRC and the utilities disclosed the negotiations in court filings and said there were no inadmissibility.
New Energy Economy has had great success against the state’s largest utility in the past, but now it appears the utility is preparing to strike back. “Of course you have the right to advocate for the causes you choose, but you don’t have the right to lie outright about my client,” Locke wrote to Nanasi. The letter ends with this ominous warning: “This is not a full statement of my client’s rights, all of which are expressly reserved.”
Does this mean that AVANGRID is preparing other court cases that will follow? A spokeswoman for AVANGRID declined to comment, but you can bet a lawyer with her experience bringing and winning libel cases to court doesn’t just need cases to write letters.
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