FPL’s parent keeps its Florida politics memo eyes-only at its lawyers’ offices as Virginia testimony comes due

NextEra Energy, the Juno Beach parent of Florida Power & Light, will let the other side in its Virginia merger case read a memo about FPL and Florida politics, but only at its lawyers’ offices. On Oct. 8, Chief Hearing Examiner D. Mathias Roussy Jr. of the Virginia State Corporation Commission granted the companies’ request that the 2021 “Robo Memorandum” be made available to commission staff and to parties that signed the case’s confidentiality agreement “in the manner and location identified in the Motion,” which proposed review “on an in-person and ‘eyes only’ basis at the offices of Joint Petitioners’ counsel,” with no photos, transcriptions or copies and no removing the documents (Virginia SCC ruling and motion). The memorandum “will not be distributed to those parties through the electronic system used to share records in the case,” and “The ruling does not determine whether the allegations involving Florida Power & Light are true or whether the merger should be approved,” The Center Square reported (The Center Square). The Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald reported that the memo “likely won’t be made public unless there is a successful challenge to that ruling” (Tampa Bay Times / Miami Herald). Through the Oct. 16 filings, re-pulled Oct. 18, no party had asked the full commission to review the ruling (Virginia SCC docket).

On Thursday, Oct. 15, NextEra CEO John Ketchum pitched the takeover to business leaders, regulators and policymakers at a Richmond infrastructure forum; many opponents “say the questions they want answered have more to do with a document known as the Robo Memo,” WTVR reported, and Ketchum and Dominion Energy Virginia President Ed Baine “were not available to take questions from reporters at the conference” (WTVR). WTVR’s reporter wrote that the “more than 150-page, partially redacted document was originally leaked to Florida journalists and then provided to me” (WTVR). The companies’ pitch: Baine said, “There are some misconceptions out there about, well, this merger will make your bills go up. No, number one, you said no merger costs will be passed on the customers, and number two, the regulator will still have to approve any changes to the bill going forward,” and both executives said the merger will improve the company’s credit rating and that “that will drive down customer bills” (WTVR). Merger opponent Janet Wolfe: “If it is so sensitive, then what is in that memo? I mean, you have to ask what are they hiding?” (WTVR).

The case is NextEra’s proposed $67 billion merger with Dominion Energy (Utility Dive). On Oct. 2 the same examiner had ordered the companies to produce the memo, finding the request for it “reasonably calculated to lead to evidence that could verify or impeach the Petition’s representations regarding the historic managerial fitness” of the merging companies (Virginia SCC ruling, Oct. 2; Utility Dive). He described it as a document titled “Florida Power & Light Officers’ Potentially Unlawful Conduct Through Third-Party Consultants and Vendors - Confidential,” “allegedly sent to NextEra’s then-Chairman James Robo on or about November 3, 2021” (Virginia SCC ruling, Oct. 2).

Your stake: if you owned NextEra stock on June 11, 2026, you are part of a proposed settlement of shareholder suits over “an alleged political influence scheme tied to improper use of ‘dark money’ funding”: the individual defendants’ insurers would pay NextEra $15.5 million, and shareholders’ lawyers would get a “separately negotiated” $5.75 million fee and expense award if the court approves it; the notice does not say who pays the fee, and NextEra’s quarterly report describes the insurers paying it “approximately $16 million, less plaintiffs’ and shareholders’ counsel’s fees” (NextEra 8-K and notice; NextEra 10-Q). To object, your written objection must be postmarked or on file with the clerk by Nov. 30, 2026, with proof you owned NextEra stock on June 11; the hearing is Dec. 14 at 3 p.m. at the Judge Daniel T. K. Hurley Courthouse in West Palm Beach and “will be in person only” (NextEra notice). If you bought NextEra securities between Dec. 2, 2021 and Jan. 30, 2023, a separate proposed $150 million class-action settlement, which NextEra says insurance would cover, was refused preliminary approval in August; the parties can refile, and we found no refiling (NextEra 10-Q; E&E News). If you vote for attorney general in November, one candidate says the memo would be relevant to that choice (Tampa Bay Times / Miami Herald). If you vote for attorney general in November, one candidate says the memo would be relevant to that choice (Tampa Bay Times / Miami Herald).

The money

The companies say the memo is unproven. Their Oct. 7 motion says it was written by Matrix, LLC, a consulting firm “that was at one time under contract with NextEra,” and sent “on an unsolicited basis” to Robo during a break-up among the firm’s principals; that it “alleged misconduct related to political activities in Florida by the former business partner and associates at the consulting firm,” including activities “certain Florida Power and Light (‘FPL’) employees allegedly may have been aware of or in which they may have participated”; that NextEra’s investigation “found no credible evidence of any illegal conduct on the part of NextEra or any NextEra employees”; and that “No NextEra employee has ever been charged with or convicted of a crime in connection with any issues contained in the Robo Memorandum” (Virginia SCC motion). It warned that “Public disclosure of the Robo Memorandum’s unfounded allegations, or any details of them, would cause Joint Petitioners and individual third parties irreparable harm” (Virginia SCC motion; WTVR). The companies have also said, in a pleading quoted in the Oct. 2 ruling, that Matrix was “an outside political consulting firm engaged by FPL from approximately 2017 to 2020” (Virginia SCC ruling, Oct. 2).

The money in the filings is the companies’ own account. Their pleading, quoted in the Oct. 2 ruling, says the costs of FPL’s Santee Cooper proposal were about $23.6 million and of its JEA proposal about $2.6 million, “And none - zero percent - of those costs was borne by FPL ratepayers” (Virginia SCC ruling, Oct. 2). In the Palm Beach shareholder case, Davidson v. Silagy, the defendants, including former FPL chief executive Eric Silagy, Robo and John W. Ketchum, deny all wrongdoing; the settlement also adds one new independent director “with political and/or legislative experience” (NextEra notice).

A second, larger settlement sits beside it. In the 2023 securities class action in the Southern District of Florida over “alleged false or misleading statements regarding NEE’s alleged campaign finance and other political activities,” NextEra agreed in June 2026 to pay “an aggregate of $150 million to settle all claims,” inclusive of plaintiffs’ lawyers’ fees, and “NEE’s payment would be covered by insurance” (NextEra 10-Q). On Friday, Aug. 7, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon denied preliminary approval, saying the proposal lacked sufficient information, including on the size of a class plaintiffs had estimated at “at least 200,000 members”; the parties can refile after more fact-finding (E&E News). These are settlement payments, not profits or losses from operations.

Clean Virginia put both in the record. In testimony filed Oct. 16, its witness Scott Hempling, who says he has worked on utility merger cases since 1985, argued under the heading “The benefit-value of NextEra’s and Dominion’s promises not to break the law, already at zero, goes below zero because on dozens of occasions both have violated legal requirements,” citing NextEra’s answer to a staff question in which it “acknowledged findings of violations, and settlements of allegations of violations” in reliability, accounting, tariff, nuclear, environmental, labor and safety matters, and describing the $150 million class-action settlement; his testimony does not mention the Robo Memo (Virginia SCC, Hempling testimony). Clean Virginia’s Albert Lin testified the same day that FPL generates “roughly 70% of NEE’s consolidated operating cash flow,” and that the Florida Public Service Commission in November 2025 approved a settlement setting FPL’s return on equity at 10.95%, in a range of 9.95% to 11.95%, for four years from Jan. 1, 2027 (Virginia SCC, Lin testimony). That is the Florida customer’s line in this case: the Florida utility is the cash engine of the company asking to buy Dominion.

The opponents wanted copies. Clean Virginia said the motion “proposes that the parties receive not the document but a reading of it at counsel’s office, with no copy, notes, or transcription,” that “the Motion does not ask how to comply with the Ruling; it asks permission not to,” and that eyes-only review is “burdensome, expensive, unnecessary, and unworkable” for 33 respondents whose testimony is due Oct. 19 (Clean Virginia opposition). NextEra Vice Chairman Armando Pimentel, appointed to that post in May (NextEra Energy), told Virginia lawmakers on Oct. 6 that “That Robo Memo has a number of unsubstantiated allegations associated with it” (Tampa Bay Times / Miami Herald), that “There are people who were incarcerated as a result of wrongdoing associated with allegations in that Robo memo,” and that “no one at Florida Power and Light, NextEra Energy or the companies themselves were ever charged on any of those allegations” (WVTF). “That proposed settlement is not final, and so we would not be releasing the Robo Memo out to the public, if you will,” he said (WTVR).

The public has started weighing in. The commission’s first public witness hearing, Oct. 7 in Newport News, heard 31 witnesses and was continued to Nov. 17 (Virginia SCC hearing report; Utility Dive); at the second, Oct. 9, Del. Irene Shin cited concerns about the “Robo memo,” “which is filed in the SCC’s case docket but which the public has yet to review,” Utility Dive reports; the commission’s report lists 57 witnesses at that hearing, which was continued to Nov. 5 at 8:30 a.m. (Virginia SCC hearing report, Oct. 14). Telephone hearings follow Nov. 5, 9 and 10, and under the case’s 180-day clock a decision is due in January (Utility Dive). On Oct. 9 the commission extended written public comments to Nov. 12, from Nov. 9 (Virginia SCC order). On Oct. 8 it let the companies file supplemental testimony from Ketchum, Dominion CEO Robert Blue and Baine on new voluntary merger commitments and an alternative bill-credit allocation, finding that developing potential conditions “contributes to a more robust record” (Virginia SCC order, Oct. 8). The Data Center Coalition asked to intervene late; the companies said Oct. 14 they “do not oppose” it, and Google’s Oct. 15 response quotes the coalition’s estimate that the companies’ alternative proposal “would result in just under $500 million of additional bill credit funding for residential customers” (Virginia SCC). There was no reply from the coalition and no ruling on the motion through the Oct. 16 docket (Virginia SCC docket).

How it works

The ruling decides how the memo is read, not whether it is true. The examiner said he based it on the documents being subject to “pending litigation where they have been produced subject to maintaining confidentiality thereof,” and not “on assertions or inferences regarding any particular party or parties”; one copy each goes to the Office of Hearing Examiners and to the commission’s counsel for possible review in private, for example if the commission must rule on admissibility, and access “shall be provided, upon request, without any delay” (Virginia SCC ruling, Oct. 8). The commission has not ruled on whether the memo is evidence. The evidentiary hearing on the merger is scheduled for 10 a.m. Nov. 17 (Virginia SCC order, July 21).

What could still stop it

Every allegation here is unproven. NextEra says its investigation found no credible evidence of illegal conduct, and no NextEra employee has been charged (Virginia SCC motion; WVTF; Miami Herald). The Oct. 2 ruling quotes investors in Jastram v. NextEra alleging that “under the direction of [former FPL CEO Eric] Silagy and his subordinates at FPL, a non-profit organization called Grow United was created and used to channel corporate resources to a network of nonprofits that funded ‘ghost candidates’”; that is the investors’ allegation, not a finding (Virginia SCC ruling, Oct. 2). The full memo has not been made public: WTVR says its reporter was given a partly redacted copy, and the commission has not ruled on whether the memo is admissible (WTVR; Virginia SCC). The settlement’s defendants deny wrongdoing, and the insurer payment and the lawyers’ fee are separate figures we do not net against each other (NextEra notice). Hempling’s description of the class-action settlement is his characterization (Virginia SCC, Hempling testimony).

Why it matters across Florida

The memo lands in a Florida race. In 2020, “conservative-allied political consultants targeted the Democratic incumbent of a Miami state Senate district, recruiting a candidate with the same last name to confuse voters,” and José Javier Rodríguez “lost to the Republican candidate by 32 votes,” the Herald reports; he is now running for attorney general against Republican Attorney General James Uthmeier, who the Herald says “was not involved in the scandal” and did not respond to questions about the memo. Rodríguez: “I think it would absolutely be really relevant to voters as they’re deciding who’s going to be the next attorney general,” and “The fact that they’ve faced no accountability because they own the political process is not a very compelling argument” (Tampa Bay Times / Miami Herald). FPL serves more than 6 million accounts in Florida (FPL); what a Virginia regulator learns about how FPL managed its politics is a question about the company that sends those bills.

What to watch

Staff and respondent testimony, due today, Oct. 19; Clean Virginia and the Apartment and Office Building Association filed early, on Oct. 16 (Virginia SCC order, July 21; Virginia SCC docket). Whether any party asks the full commission to review the Oct. 8 ruling; none had through the Oct. 16 docket (Virginia SCC). A ruling on the Data Center Coalition’s motion to intervene (Virginia SCC). Telephone public hearings Nov. 5, 9 and 10; written comments close Nov. 12. The evidentiary hearing, 10 a.m. Nov. 17. A commission decision in January (Utility Dive; WTVR). Objections to the Davidson v. Silagy settlement, due Nov. 30, and its hearing in West Palm Beach, Dec. 14 at 3 p.m. (NextEra notice). Whether the $150 million class-action settlement is refiled (E&E News). The Nov. 3 attorney general’s race.

Correction

Correction, Oct. 14: An earlier version of this story said Armando Pimentel is a NextEra vice president. He is NextEra’s vice chairman, appointed in May 2026 (NextEra Energy; WTVR).