A $2 billion SCANA lawsuit settlement has been misrepresented.
The settlement announcement was misleading, according to the state Office of Regulatory staff.
ORS spokesman Ron Aiken said it now appears that:
• SCANA executives will receive $115 million if the Public Service Commission approves SCANA’s sale to Dominion Energy. The severance is in their contracts.
• The $115 million was presented as coming from executives’ severance pay. 
It appears it will come from SCANA or Dominion. It could be passed on to ratepayers in future rate hikes.
• Reports that the total $2 billion settlement will be passed to ratepayers in rate cuts is not true.
• Lawyers in the settlement will get 20% – not 35% – of the $115 million or $23 million to divide between themselves.
SCANA’s 727,000 ratepayers who buy their power from the company’s SC Electric & Gas may get only a break on $2 billion additionally they would be charged for the failed project. That will leave $500 million for the ratepayers – not SCANA investors – to pick up.
That could be paid over 20 years under 1 of 3 formulas:
• ORS wants ratepayers to be charged a $5 a month.
• SCANA wants $7.
 • Dominion wants $9.
All of this depends on the PSC approving the sale. What happens if they don’t is not known but terms may have to be renegotiated.
The Chronicle has asked Attorney General Alan Wilson’s office for clarification.
ORS spokesman Aiken said. “We believe the $2 billion credit cited in reports refers to the amount that the ORS already has sought to disallow as imprudently incurred. Dominion/SCANA has agreed not to seek recovery of in its two most-recent merger proposals. 
“The $2 billion is not a credit back to the customers. It is an amount the company has agreed it will not seek to recover from customers.”