Santee Cooper announced on Monday that it settled a federal lawsuit over its handling of the failed V.C. Summer nuclear project for $2 million. The lawsuit was brought by people who invested in the utility’s mini-bonds.
Santee Cooper is prepared to settle a federal lawsuit that alleged the state-run utility misled its investors about the risk of the V.C. Summer nuclear project prior to the cancellation of that power project in 2017.
The board of directors for Santee Cooper announced on Monday that the utility reached a $2 million deal with attorneys who were representing people who invested money in the utility’s so-called minibonds between 2014 to 2016.
Those bonds helped to finance Santee Cooper, a state-run electric utility, during the decade-long nuclear project, which Santee Cooper partnered on with S.C. Electric & Gas.
The proposed settlement over the mini-bonds will end one of the last major lawsuits facing Santee Cooper as a result of its handling of the failed South Carolina nuclear project.
Mark Bonsall, Santee Cooper’s CEO, told the members of Santee Cooper’s board on Monday that his team had ended the “litigation risk” for the utility through several legal settlements this year.
Mollie Gore, Santee Cooper’s spokeswoman, declined to comment on the mini-bond settlement Monday, and she emphasized the deal still needs to be approved by a federal judge.
It’s unclear at this point how much money will go to the mini bondholders and how much of the settlement the attorneys will collect for their legal fees.
The lawyers representing the mini bondholders did immediately respond to emails. The bondholders were being represented by attorneys at two Pennsylvania law firms — Shuman Glenn and Stecker and the Weiser Law Firm — and two South Carolina firms — Hopkins Law Firm and Tinkler Law Firm.
The bond lawsuit, which was filed in federal court after project’s collapse, alleged Santee Cooper and its former CEO Lonnie Carter knew that the nuclear construction effort was faltering as early as 2015 but failed to report that information to mini bondholders.
The legal complaint specifically cited a 2015 audit of the nuclear project that was conducted by Bechtel Corp., one of the country’s largest construction and engineering firms.
Earlier this year, Santee Cooper reached a separate settlement with its electric ratepayers and the power customers with South Carolina’s 20 electric cooperatives, which the utility also supplies power to.
As part of that deal, Santee Cooper agreed to pay $200
million and freeze it electric rates for four years. Dominion Energy, which
took over SCE&G in 2019, chipped in another $320 million for that
settlement to end its potential liability as the majority owner of the nuclear
project.
