Lawsuit demands ComEd refund to customers money they paid as a result of bribery scheme

A lawsuit filed Monday seeks to put ComEd on the hook to reimburse customers at least $150 million for rate increases that were gained through a bribery scheme the company admitted it took part in.

The lawsuit, which seeks class-action status, comes 10 days after it was announced ComEd had struck a deal with federal prosecutors to pay a $200 million fine to the U.S. Treasury Department and admit its participation in a bribery scheme that handed out jobs, contracts and money to friends and allies of Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan in order to receive favorable treatment for legislation.

That legislation ultimately meant higher electricity bills for ComEd customers, said attorney Stephan Blandin, who filed the suit on behalf of several individuals and businesses in the Chicago region.

“ComEd thinks they can just admit it, pay a fine, and get on with it. It’s mind-blowing,” Blandin said. “We want each dollar that was overpaid to get refunded to those ratepayers.”

According to federal prosecutors, ComEd benefitted at least $150 million from the scheme, but Blandin believes the number to be far greater.

“We allege the damages are in the hundreds of millions and perhaps billions,” he said. “Potentially 4 million ComEd customers were affected.”

Blandin said he’ll be seeking financial documents from ComEd and its parent company, Exelon, to determine exactly what rate hikes are attributable to bribery scheme.

The suit was filed in Cook County. A future court date has yet to be assigned to the case.

“We apologize for the past conduct that did not live up to our values and have made significant improvements to our compliance practices to ensure that nothing like it ever happens again. The improper conduct described in the deferred prosecution agreement, however, does not mean that consumers were harmed by the legislation that was passed in Illinois,” ComEd said in a statement.

“The DPA makes no such allegations, and in fact the bipartisan legislation resulted in substantial benefits for ComEd’s customers, including 70 percent improved reliability since 2012 and billions of dollars in savings for customers.”

A spokesperson for Madigan didn’t return requests for comment.