SCANA hid criticism of its $9 billion nuclear failure from investors for 2 years.
Based on recently-discovered emails, the Charleston Post and Courier reported SCANA pressured its nuclear partner Santee Cooper to bury the analysis.
That analysis revealed incompetent engineering, skyrocketing costs and unrealistic deadlines in the project managed by the Lexington County-based holding company and its SC Electric & Gas subsidiary. 
The emails revealed that: 
• SCANA’s top executives feared the analysis by engineering giant Bechtel Corp. would be discovered.
They hid it and other critical evidence from state regulators and the public for 2 years before they abandoned the project on which they had spent $2 billion of their ratepayers’ money.
• For the first time SCANA decided not to alert its investors about the analysis.
This poses a legal threat to SCANA and its top executives as the FBI, regulators and plaintiff lawyers seek evidence that they illegally withheld information.
SCANA’s accountants may be pressed on why this wasn’t mentioned in a quarterly report to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
• James Swan IV, an executive who signs off on SCANA’s financial statements, down-played the significance of the analysis. 
Bechtel was only paid $1 million, Swan said, to explain why SCANA believed the analysis was “limited.”
• SCANA’s executives were in “complete agreement that no disclosure should be made,” Ronald Lindsay, the company’s attorney at the time, emailed.
• Jimmy Addison, the former chief financial officer and current CEO, didn’t want to “volunteer” any information to the Securities and Exchange Commission. 
Bechtel’s analysis wasn’t revealed until SCANA and Santee Cooper abandoned the reactors last year. 
Gov. Henry McMaster forced Santee Cooper to turn over Bechtel’s report.
SCANA declined to comment to the Post and Courier about the emails.
Attorneys challenging SCANA say they believe the emails suggest the analysis was intentionally withheld.
Investors and ratepayers have filed class-action lawsuits seeking billions of dollars in damages. 
The emails may help decide who pays for the project – SCANA or its more than 727,000 ratepayers.