Biography

Chris Hajovsky brings decades of senior FERC and NERC regulatory experience to deliver specialized, practical counsel for energy clients in wholesale power, natural gas, midstream, and organized markets. Chris’s background in commodity trading and marketing operations, compliance program development, and information technology integration bolsters his practice, which includes administrative law, environmental/health & safety compliance, enforcement defense, energy and oil & gas transactions, and natural resources work. He has a proven track record of working with regulators to achieve zero-penalty results for clients in power, gas, and infrastructure.

Chris helps clients navigate high-stakes FERC matters decisively, automate recurring compliance workflows, prepare for audits with confidence, and integrate regulatory strategy with business operations.

Representative Matters

• Chris has a proven track record of working with regulators to achieve zero-penalty results for clients ranging in size from 1,000 to over 12,000 employees in the sectors of power, gas, and infrastructure to include the below-listed projects.
• Personally directing the development of compliance programs subjected to 15 governmental agency-initiated audits with zero violations found and no penalties assessed, including a clean FERC audit that produced no FERC recommendations for program improvements.
• Directly overseeing FERC-related filings, inquiries, pleadings, and market operations issues across multiple regions of the energy sector including.
• Leading NERC Reliability Standards programs, managed teams preparing and reviewing thousands of annual regulatory filings (e.g., electric quarterly reports, market-based rate authority applications and renewals), and developing policies, procedures, guides, and training modules for high-risk areas.
• Representing energy companies, marketers, traders, and infrastructure operators in FERC audits, investigations, enforcement actions, and compliance inquiries, leveraging his proven audit-defense strategies and deep operational insight to achieve favorable outcomes and minimize risk.
• Advising on and handling FERC proceedings, including rulemaking comments, market-based rate authorizations, transmission/interconnection issues, organized market (RTO/ISO) participation, and reliability standards compliance.
• Designing and implementing robust, automated compliance programs tailored to energy commodity marketing/trading and midstream activities, incorporating Dodd-Frank end-user requirements, records management (e.g., SEC 17a-4/18a-6 and electronic systems), instant messaging capture/monitoring, and IT-driven tools (SharePoint, custom web solutions) that reduce staffing needs and enhance efficiency – directly supporting the firm’s regulatory risk-management and enforcement defense practice.
• Providing strategic counsel on market-shaping activities, regulator interfacing, licensing/authorizations, and litigation support (including discovery responses and policy recommendations to senior executives), drawing on his early career as a natural gas trader transitioned to regulatory affairs and his ongoing work in physical commodities reporting and client-money rules.
• Supporting transactional and due-diligence needs involving FERC approvals, rate/tariff matters, and NERC certifications.