Tesoro Petroleum Corporation and Tesoro Alaska Company v. State of Alaska and Bruce M. Botelho, in his official capacity as Attorney General of the State of Alaska

Summary

The Alaska Supreme Court affirmed orders permitting the Attorney General's outside counsel to inspect documents produced by Tesoro in response to a civil investigative demand concerning possible antitrust violations and finding the demand not unreasonable or oppressive. The court held that outside counsel could qualify as an authorized employee or designee under AS 45.50.592 and adopted a deferential reasonable-relevance standard for reviewing investigative demands. The court also upheld the superior court's substantial modifications to the demand.

Holdings

1. Outside counsel retained by the attorney general may qualify as an authorized employee of the state and a designee under AS 45.50.592(e), and may inspect CID materials without an additional disclosure or good-cause order.
2. A trial court reviewing a CID must determine whether it was issued pursuant to lawful authority, is relevant to the inquiry, and adequately specifies the documents to be produced; relevance is evaluated under a deferential reasonable-relevance standard.
3. The superior court did not abuse its discretion in finding that the CID was not unreasonable, improper, or oppressive, including its requests for documents covering ten years and multiple petroleum products.

Questions Presented

1. Whether outside counsel retained by the attorney general qualifies as an authorized employee, representative, or designee who may inspect CID materials under AS 45.50.592(e) without the respondent's consent or a good-cause order.
2. What standard a trial court must apply when reviewing the reasonableness, relevance, and scope of a CID issued under AS 45.50.592.
3. Whether the superior court abused its discretion by upholding the CID as not unreasonable, improper, or oppressive despite its temporal, geographic, personnel, and product breadth.

Disposition

affirmed