Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end.

— Dr. Spock, Star Trek, Starfleet Officer

The long-running legal saga between Enterprise Products Partners (“Enterprise”) and Energy Transfer Partners (“ETP”) may finally be nearing its end after the Texas Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision last Friday, January 31, 2020, holding that no partnership ever arose between the parties. (Read more) This dispute between two of the major players in the energy industry focused on the legal standard for determining when a partnership is formed. ETP argued that the test for partnership formation should be based on the parties’ conduct, while Enterprise maintained that specific conditions the parties agreed to include in their contracts had to be established before a partnership was created, and it contended that those conditions had never been met.

The Supreme Court’s opinion may be the final chapter in eight years of hard-fought litigation between Enterprise and ETP, although ETP will have the right to file a petition for rehearing of the Court’s decision. We will share our third blog post about the case and also review some important lessons for business owners gleaned from this lengthy legal conflict. ¹
Continue Reading Business Owners Take Note as Enterprise Completes Its Mission: Supreme Court Holds No Common Law Partnership Was Formed with ETP