A confusing settlement offer

Shady communications regarding expired car warranties, suspended Amazon accounts and offers of untold riches are an unfortunate fact of modern life. Scams are so ubiquitous — on our phones, in our email inboxes and even in our mailboxes — that it can be hard to sort out what's real. Which explains why a lot of people were suspicious when they received an email originating from the email address rewards@reward.tremendous.com that said the sender was the "Settlement Administrator" for the "Ohio Electricity Litigation via Tremendous." The emails said the recipients would receive small dollar amounts — the average payment is around $15 — as part of a settlement reached with FirstEnergy in a class-action lawsuit centered on House Bill 6. That's the state energy bailout bill at the heart of a $60 million bribery scandal that led to the conviction and imprisonment of former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, R-Glenford. The emails, and debit cards that some ratepayers will receive by mail, were indeed real. So, too, was the confusion, which is why the Better Business Bureau last week put out a news release stating that the emails were likely legitimate. FirstEnergy and Energy Harbor, a former subsidiary of FirstEnergy, agreed to pay a combined $49 million to settle the lawsuit, which accused the companies of using funds from ratepayers to pay the bribes. FirstEnergy had pushed House Bill 6, which included a $1 billion bailout for two nuclear power plants. The lawyers who brought the case earned around $13 million, with the remainder mostly being divvied up among the roughly 2 million members of the class. Debit cards, either the digital ones that arrived via email or the physical ones that arrived via mail, were not the best vehicle to get the money into the hands of ratepayers. A better solution would have been to credit the money to ratepayers on a future electric bill. Unfortunately, FirstEnergy "adamantly refused" to credit bills, Dennis Murray Jr., one of the lawyers involved in the case, told The Plain Dealer last week. The reason, he said, was that the company would have needed permission from the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio to do so, leading to delays. When The PD reached out to FirstEnergy to confirm that, a spokesperson declined to comment specifically on that, saying that the lawyers didn't have access to customer bills and that it was up to the lawyers to distribute the settlement money. Still, one would think FirstEnergy would be more eager to generate goodwill among its customers, considering how deeply tarnished the scandal left its reputation. The company reached a deferred prosecution agreement with federal investigators that saw it pay a $230 million penalty and forfeit another $6.4 million. None of the executives at the company has been charged, although Householder, former Ohio Republican Party Chairman Matt Borges and others have been convicted. The federal investigation into FirstEnergy is still ongoing and could lead to charges against others, including former FirstEnergy CEO Chuck Jones and former PUCO chief Sam Randazzo. Their alleged involvement in the scheme has been the subject of a great many questions, although both have denied any wrongdoing. Exactly where that investigation stands, however, is unclear. U.S. Attorney for Southern Ohio Kenneth Parker, who is overseeing the case, last week asked the PUCO to delay its own investigation for another six months. It's the third such request from the feds, The Toledo Blade reported. Parker told the PUCO that its investigation could interfere with the federal probe. The ongoing investigation isn't the only unfinished business hanging around from the HB 6 scandal. While the parts of HB 6 that dealt with the nuclear power plants have been rolled back, other provisions, including subsidies for two coal-fired power plants owned by the Ohio Valley Electric Corp., remain in place despite efforts to remove them from state law. One of the coal-fired plants is in Indiana. When state lawmakers reconvene after their summer recess, that should be at the top of their priority list. The settlement payments might be mired in confusion, but that shouldn't be the case when it comes to fully and finally eliminating the last vestiges of the scandal-tainted HB 6.