Holtec International paid $5 million to avoid criminal prosecution by the state of New Jersey, which said the Jupiter, Fla., company might have acted illegally in 2018 when it sought investment tax credits from the state.
Holtec and an affiliate company, Singh Real Estate Enterprise, have also agreed to give up a combined $1 million in state tax credits that were evenly split between the two companies, New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin wrote Tuesday in a press release announcing the statement.
Following what Platkin called “a lengthy criminal investigation,” the state said Holtec and Singh Real Estate made it appear that they had jointly invested in a New Jersey battery company in July 2018 in order to get more tax credits than would have been available to a single investor under state law.
In reality, the state said in a non-prosecution agreement released Tuesday, only Holtec put any money into the battery maker. In November, however, both Holtec and the real estate company claimed $550,000 each in tax credits, telling the state that they had each made an investment “as of July” 2018, according to the agreement.
Holtec, which does much business out of its factory and campus in Camden, N.J., does not deny doing any of this.
The company does, however, deny that what it did in 2018 was illegal. State courts have twice sided with Holtec, which in 2020 sued the state in the Superior Court of New Jersey for withholding the tax credits, and won.
In November, the Superior Court’s Appellate Division turned down the state’s appeal of Holtec’s lawsuit, writing that New Jersey was not entitled to withhold the credits because of its “lack of diligence” with Holtec and Singh Real Estate Enterprises’ tax-credit applications.
Holtec signed the settlement only “[u]nder threat of unfounded retaliatory criminal prosecution,” the company wrote Tuesday in its own press release. New Jersey’s actions are “needlessly punishing a large New Jersey manufacturer on the forefront of the green energy revolution in America,” said Holtec.
Holtec has become a household name in the nuclear-power-plant decommissioning business. In the U.S., the company is dismantling five plants, including one, the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station, that Holtec is trying at the behest of locals and the state to restart.
