SCANA Corporation, Execs Knocked with Racketeering Class Action Over Bonuses from ‘Disastrous’ Reactor Project

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SCANA Corporation, subsidiary South Carolina Electric & Gas (SCE&G), and 11 top executives are the defendants in a proposed class action lawsuit in which the plaintiff claims the parties violated federal racketeering law by increasing their own salaries and reaping “performance bonuses” while an ambitious, ratepayer-funded project to construct two new nuclear reactors floundered and was ultimately put on ice.

“Executives of SCANA enriched themselves through increased salaries, ‘performance bonuses’ and other compensation linked to their alleged ‘success’ with regard to the ‘progress’ in the construction and completion of two new … 17-megawatt nuclear reactors as the V.C. Summer Generating Station (the ‘Nuclear Reactor Project’), when in truth and in fact, such ‘progress’ was based on little more than repeated fraudulent statements and misrepresentations of material [facts] relating to that Project.”

 After documenting the years-long run up to revelations that the nuclear reactor project suffered from a bevy of management-, engineering-, financial- and deadline-related issues—most of which ClassAction.org has covered in recent months as a result of SCANA being named in more than a few lawsuits—the 51-page complaint delves into the defendants’ alleged scheme to hide the true projected cost and completion timeline for the reactors. While the situation became critical and the reactor project was nearing abandonment—and while ratepayers faced even more increases in energy costs—SCANA execs were given substantial bonuses “for work directly related to the disastrous Nuclear Reactor Project,” which included $3.3 million for SCANA’s CEO and more than $600,000 each for the company’s CFO and COO, the suit claims.

The lawsuit alleges violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).