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SCANA and its successor company, Dominion Energy, have reached an agreement to pay the federal Securities and Exchange Commission a $25 million civil fine in one of the state’s largest civil fraud cases, according to public court records filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court.

Under the proposed settlement, neither SCANA, a now-defunct company, nor Dominion Energy, its successor company, admit any fault in the multi-billion dollar business failure of one of the state’s largest construction projects ever – the effort to build two nuclear power plants in Fairfield County.

However, under the proposal, neither corporation can publicly claim it is innocent of any wrong-doing alleged in the SEC’s 87-page civil complaint, filed last February in U.S. District Court in Columbia.

In its February complaint, the SEC depicted the once-respected SCANA, whose shares had been publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange, and its two top executives as carrying out a brazen con scheme for nearly three years to prop up the company’s stock and hide the truth about the impending collapse of the nuclear project.

The SEC alleged more than 35 separate instances of alleged lies and cover-ups by former SCANA CEO Kevin Marsh and former SCANA executive vice president Stephen Byrne from the beginning of 2015 to August, 2017, just after SCANA announced it was abandoning the project after a total of $9 billion was spent.

The 35-plus alleged lies and deceptions by the two men fell in five separate categories over some 32 months: untruths to investors and analysts, cover-ups of crucial information, falsehoods to S.C. government oversight bodies, concealment of vital information to the federal SEC and deceitful video and other presentations to lawmakers and the news media, according to an analysis of the complaint by The State newspaper.

Byrne, 60, recently pleaded guilty to criminal fraud in the case and is awaiting sentencing. Marsh, 65, last week agreed to plead guilty to criminal fraud, according to filings in U.S. District Court.

Both Marsh and Byrne are defendants in the SEC’s civil fraud case, and the civil fraud charges against them “remain ongoing,” court records said.

The proposed settlement, which was filed by U.S. Attorney for South Carolina Peter McCoy and signed on Wednesday, still must be approved by a federal judge…………. https://www.thestate.com/news/local/crime/article247563565.html