By Jerry Bellune

JerryBellune@yahoo.com

It was a big pay day for class action lawyers and their SCANA investor clients.

To be precise, it meant $192.5 million for the clients minus $30 million for their 11 law firms.

That may sound like a hefty fee but it's a little over 6% of the settlement.

Their civil fraud lawsuit against SCANA and its former top brass was settled last week for that amount.

Had they gone to court, the lawsuit might have paid more that $1 billion.

The lawsuit was filed 3 years ago after SCANA and taxpayer-owed Santee Cooper abandoned their $9 billion nuclear project.

SCANA's SC Electric & Gas had charged 725,000 ratepayers $2 billion in higher rates.

Federal investigators found that SCANA executives knew for more than a year that the project was failing and covered it up.

They lied repeatedly to state regulators about their progress to attain more rate hikes.

After the Chronicle and other media reported the nuclear fiasco, SCANA's stock value plunged from $70 a share to $40.

Hundreds of SCANA and SCE&G employees who bought the stock were staggered by the loss of their planned retirement funds. 

Dominion Energy which bougt SCANA last year agreed to pay the settlement.