The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has announced a new policy statement on civil penalty guidelines to enhance its enforcement program. From the news release: "This approach promotes consistency by basing the penalty calculations on a set of uniform factors that are weighted similarly for similar types of violations and similar types of violators. The Penalty Guidelines also provide specific credit to companies for self-reporting violations and for implementing robust compliance programs, thus further encouraging compliance by the industry. Based on the specific facts and circumstances of a violation, the Commission retains the discretion to impose a penalty that is not based on an application of the Penalty Guidelines."
A copy of the Policy Statement can be found here.