A retired lawyer’s legal fight with the city and EPCOR ended after his lawsuit challenging EPCOR’s multibillion-dollar sale of their power-generating assets was dismissed in court yesterday.

“I think I’ve done my duty as a citizen to bring this forward, put some sunlight on the situation,” said Bill Pidruchney, former head of Alberta Securities Commission, outside the courthouse.

CLOUD OVER COUNCIL

“However, the unhappy thing is that there is a cloud hanging over city council and over the city with respect to this transaction.”

The city and EPCOR were successful in their application to have Pidruchney’s legal action dismissed. Pidruchney was also ordered in court to cover some associated legal costs.

Pidruchney had launched legal action after alleging that the city had made the April 17 decision behind closed doors to spin off its publicly owned Canadian and U.S. power-generation assets into a new local company called Capital Power Corporation.

He tried to obtain an injunction to stop the sale but was denied in July.

A trio of labour groups, including the Alberta Federation of Labour, later also tried to challenge the sale in court but were unsuccessful.

“There will be no more legal steps from my point of view, but there are plenty of practical steps that should be taken in dealing with council,” Pidruchney said. ‘

“There are questions that must be answered before the next election. We’ll keep digging from a citizen’s point of view now and see what comes up.”

UNMERITED CLAIM

EPCOR spokesman Tim le Riche said Pidruchney’s claim was without merit and that the court has upheld the process used to create Capital Power.

“We uphold that the creation of Capital Power is a benefit to EPCOR and to its sole shareholder, the citizens of Edmonton,” le Riche said.

Edmonton Sun, Thurs Dec 24 2009
Byline: Clara Ho