This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Monday, May 19th, 2014.

I'm Caleb Brown.

When Kevin and Rich Gates found themselves under investigation for so-called market manipulations

for trades in the energy market.

They could have settled and not risked further angering the government,

but they decided to fight,

and further they chose to make that fight with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

very public with the website

detailing their case, FERC litigation.com. I spoke with Kevin Gates earlier today.

I understand this is an ongoing issue with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission so you have to be careful with your words so we'll try to be respectful of that but if you don't mind how when did you first learn that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

was going to be looking into trading activities?

In August of 2010.

What did you learn at that point? That the Commission had opened a non-public

informal investigation into market manipulation. Now the public doesn't generally

hear about this sort of thing because typically

there are either charges or a settlement and you two have opted for I think it's essentially a third option, which is sort of a very public battle

here over what they're alleging are market manipulations and what you're saying are well within the rules.

Right. It was a battle anyway. We took the, I guess to take a step back and after August of 2010 they began an investigation they

conducted I guess held many depositions asked for many data requests even had sent some subpoenas.

And then in August of last year, they sent us preliminary findings of market manipulation. And we looked at these and said,

wow, we have not been effective in our ability to communicate with the FERC

over the last three years.

...