nuclear-news

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  • Dominion close to settling case with securities regulators over SC nuclear project

  https://www.postandcourier.com/business/dominion-close-to-settling-case-with-securities-regulators-over-sc-nuclear-project/article_9a4244fa-9148-11ea-8762-87d6c73e0964.html   By Andrew Brown abrown@postandcourier.com  May 8, 2020

 Dominion Energy, which bought SCANA Corp. and South Carolina Electric & Gas in 2019, could soon reach a $25 million settlement with stock market regulators over the failed V.C. Summer nuclear project that the acquired businesses abandoned nearly three years ago.The proposed deal would allow Dominion to remove itself from a high-profile civil case that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed in February.

That lawsuit alleges that SCANA, the majority owner of the two partially built reactors in Fairfield County, “repeatedly deceived” investors and furthered a “historic” case of securities fraud.

Dominion Energy South Carolina, the successor of SCE&G, was named in the lawsuit. Richmond, Va.-based Dominion inherited the company’s legal liability, along with all of SCE&G’s ratepayers in South Carolina, when it sealed its takeover of SCANA early last year.

When the SEC filed the case in February, Dominion called the lawsuit a “disappointing development.”

Since then, the utility giant has worked behind the scenes to cut a deal with the federal agency. The company announced the potential settlement with the SEC as part of a quarterly earnings report this week.

Dominion’s leaders said they struck the $25 million deal with officials at the agency’s Division of Enforcement in April. The company emphasized the settlement would still need to be finalized by the SEC and a federal judge in South Carolina.

According to Dominion, the deal would allow the company to settle the case without admitting any wrongdoing by  SCANA over the course of the failed V.C. Summer expansion project.