Deloitte to Settle Nuclear Reactor Investors’ Suit Over Audits

Deloitte & Touche LLP is finalizing the details of a class settlement agreement with investors in a failed nuclear reactor project in South Carolina, according to a federal court filing.

The amount of the settlement will be announced by about mid-June, the parties told the US District Court for the District of South Carolina on Tuesday.

Deloitte and the lead plaintiff representing the class—the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 98 Pension Fund—also asked the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit to pause an appeal over class certification that’s pending there, given the anticipated settlement. Judge Jacquelyn D. Austin certified the class of Scana Corp. investors in November 2024.

Scana’s nuclear project was abandoned in 2017 after running years behind schedule and costing more than $20 billion. Various people and entities involved with the project have faced securities charges, criminal charges, and civil litigation. Among these was Scana’s eventual parent company, Dominion Energy Inc., which in 2021 reached a global settlement of several class actions over its merger with Scana.

IBEW Local 98 alleged Deloitte was aware that the project to construct two nuclear reactors at the V.C. Summer Nuclear Generating Station was failing. But the accounting firm allegedly kept issuing clean audit reports for Scana. IBEW brought securities fraud claims against Deloitte.

Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC is lead counsel for the class, and Tinkler Law Firm LLC is liaison counsel. Moore & Van Allen and Milbank LLP represent Deloitte & Touche and parent Deloitte LLP. The same law firms represent the parties in the appeal.

The cases are Int’l Brotherhood of Elec. Workers Loc. 98 Pension Fund v. Deloitte & Touche LLP, D.S.C., No. 3:19-cv-03304, notice 4/29/25 and Int’l Brotherhood of Elec. Workers Loc. 98 Pension Fund v. Deloitte & Touche LLP, 4th Cir., No. 25-1146, motion 4/29/25.