New Jersey’s attorney general wants the state’s high court to overturn lower court rulings that nuclear technology company Holtec International is entitled to a 10-year state tax credit for construction of its campus in New Jersey. $350 million R&D and manufacturing in Camden.
Holtec applied for the estimated $260 million credit in 2017, but Attorney General Matthew Platkin says in a Feb. 1 appeal to the state Supreme Court that the company failed to disclose that she was previously barred from working for the Tennessee Valley Authority.
The application asks if any state or federal agencies had banned the company. The company said “no,” according to Platkin.
Platkin claims the lower courts erred in law by excusing Holtec for failing to disclose the TVA exclusion. The company had to pay a $2 million fine and be supervised by an independent monitor for allegedly bribing a TVA employee. There were no civil, criminal or administrative proceedings, but Holtec was suspended for 10 days.
Holtec sued New Jersey for breach of contract for failing to honor its tax credit agreement with the state’s Economic Development Authority. Both the State High Court and the Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the company.
Lower courts said rescinding tax credits for a company that legally fulfilled its agreement to make substantial investments in Camden, “an economically disadvantaged city,” would hardly be fair given all the relevant circumstances.
But the state attorney general told the high court that left intact, the rulings allow applicants to take advantage of the self-reporting regimes that many agencies rely on. “The decision sends a pernicious message to companies seeking business in the state: Investments matter more than honesty,” the New Jersey petition says.
On Jan. 29, Holtec also agreed to a separate $1 million 2018 tax incentive with the state that it applied for under the state’s Angel Investor Tax Credit program. The settlement was reached after a state criminal investigation.
The company agreed to pay $5 million in penalties and retain a state-approved independent reviewer to oversee future benefit applications. A spokesman said it agreed to settle the dispute under threat of “baseless retaliatory criminal prosecution”, noting that the payment avoids protracted litigation and resolves the threat of criminal proceedings.
He denied any wrongdoing.
Holtec had also announced on January 18 that it was financing the construction of a new facility on the 55-acre Camden campus for its expanding security and government services units.
The company is also set to get a $1.5 billion conditional loan from the U.S. Department of Energy to restart the Palisades nuclear power plant it owns in Michigan, which would be the first shuttered facility to be restarted in the United States, the media said. noting that the award could be made at the end of February. Holtec is also decommissioning New Jersey’s shuttered Oyster Creek nuclear plant, with a proposed completion date of 2029, after buying the facility in 2019.
Neither Holtec nor DOE has confirmed the award of the Palisades plant loan.
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