Kevin and Rich Gates are identical twins — and as they proudly note on their website — former Eagle Scouts who were principals in the investment funds under investigation by FERC. Both hold chemical engineering degrees from the University of Virginia and now serve as co-portfolio managers of TFS Capital LLC, a West Chester, Pa., advisory firm that manages more than $1 billion in three mutual funds and several hedge funds. Rich Gates was featured in a 2010 Wall Street Journal article as a whistleblower exposing “latency arbitrage” — the advantage  computer-driven firms get from obtaining stock prices 100 to 200 milliseconds before other traders.

William M. McSwain, who represents Powhatan Energy Fund, is a former federal prosecutor turned white collar defense attorney who “brings a creative and aggressive mindset to representing clients,” according to his law firm biography. He is a former U.S. Marine Corps infantry officer and sniper. While serving as an assistant U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, he was assigned to the Department of Defense as the lead staff investigator and executive editor of the “Church Report,” an examination of military interrogation techniques commissioned by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Houlian “Alan” Chen is a Chinese immigrant and Ph.D. engineer hired by the Gates brothers to conduct power trades. “He obtained a Ph.D. in engineering in China in 1995 and moved to the United States to seek a better life for him and his family,” according to his description on the Gates’ website. “In the following decade, he gained experience and developed knowledge about the electrical grid in the United States, with a particular expertise in the PJM market.”

John N. Estes III, Chen’s attorney, has defended a majority of the FERC enforcement cases involving market manipulation allegations that have become public, including Barclays Bank PLC, JP Morgan Ventures Energy Corp. and DB Energy Trading. He was involved in five of the eight investigations listed as “Significant Matters” in FERC’s 2013 Report on Enforcement.

Susan J. Court retired from FERC after more than 30 years, where she held several key jobs including chief of staff, associate general counsel for general and administrative law and agency ethics official. She was the first director of enforcement after Congress granted FERC enhanced penalty authority in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. She now runs a consulting firm and serves as a hearing officer for ReliabilityFirst Corp.

For the Prosecution

Norman Bay, FERC Director of Enforcement and President Obama’s nominee for FERC chair, is a former U.S. Attorney and constitutional law professor. He joined FERC in 2009, replacing Susan Court. (See FERC Pick a Blank Slate.)

Steven C. Tabackman, the lead FERC attorney in the case, is a former assistant U.S. Attorney who conducted depositions of Bush administration officials as a member of the Independent Counsel investigation into allegations of misconduct in the State Department’s Passport Office during 1992 presidential campaign. He joined FERC in 2010 after more than 20 years in private practice in which he represented former members of Congress (the House Postal scandal) and the Clinton administration (Travelgate). He says he also served as a consultant to the defense team for 9/11 defendant Zacarias Moussaoui.

(Editor’s note: RTO Insider editor Rich Heidorn Jr. worked in FERC’s enforcement division between 2002 and 2009, serving under both Susan Court and Norman Bay.)