Warren Buffett's PacifiCorp faces $30 bln new wildfire claims
By Jonathan Stempel
April 30 (Reuters) -A utility owned by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway BRKa.N faces $30 billion of new claims blaming it for causing Oregon wildfires in 2020, nearly four times the maximum loss it had projected.
One thousand victims filed claims against the PacifiCorp utility on Monday in a state court in Portland.
Victims are each seeking up to $5 million for actual losses such as property damage, and up to $25 million for non-economic losses such as emotional distress.
The claimants were added to litigation where a jury last June ordered PacifiCorp to pay $90 million to 17 claimants for gross negligence over its failure to shut down power lines during a Labor Day windstorm.
PacifiCorp is appealing. Through late February, the Portland-based utility had paid $735 million to settle wildfire claims by several hundred people and 10 timber companies.
Neither PacifiCorp nor its immediate parent Berkshire Hathaway Energy immediately responded on Tuesday to requests for comment. Buffett's conglomerate owns 92% of Berkshire Hathaway Energy.
The claims were filed two months after Buffett warned in his annual shareholder letter that wildfires could threaten the survival of utilities in a few states, an outcome he had not anticipated.
Buffett singled out California's Pacific Gas & Electric PCG.N, which filed for bankruptcy in 2019, and Hawaiian Electric HE.N, which faces many lawsuits over last August's wildfires in Maui.
Berkshire ended 2023 with $2.4 billion of projected wildfire losses, and has said they could grow to $8 billion.
The federal government is seeking nearly $1 billion from PacifiCorp to cover costs of multiple wildfires in Oregon and Northern California, and has threatened a lawsuit.
Berkshire bought PacifiCorp for $5.1 billion in 2006.
The case is Henson et al v PacifiCorp et al, Oregon Circuit Court, Multnomah County, No. 20CV33885.
Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; editing by Jonathan Oatis
免責聲明: XM Group提供線上交易平台的登入和執行服務,允許個人查看和/或使用網站所提供的內容,但不進行任何更改或擴展其服務和訪問權限,並受以下條款與條例約束:(i)條款與條例;(ii)風險提示;(iii)完全免責聲明。網站內部所提供的所有資訊,僅限於一般資訊用途。請注意,我們所有的線上交易平台內容並不構成,也不被視為進入金融市場交易的邀約或邀請 。金融市場交易會對您的投資帶來重大風險。
所有缐上交易平台所發佈的資料,僅適用於教育/資訊類用途,不包含也不應被視爲適用於金融、投資稅或交易相關諮詢和建議,或是交易價格紀錄,或是任何金融商品或非應邀途徑的金融相關優惠的交易邀約或邀請。
本網站的所有XM和第三方所提供的内容,包括意見、新聞、研究、分析、價格其他資訊和第三方網站鏈接,皆爲‘按原狀’,並作爲一般市場評論所提供,而非投資建議。請理解和接受,所有被歸類為投資研究範圍的相關内容,並非爲了促進投資研究獨立性,而根據法律要求所編寫,而是被視爲符合營銷傳播相關法律與法規所編寫的内容。請確保您已詳讀並完全理解我們的非獨立投資研究提示和風險提示資訊,相關詳情請點擊 這裡查看。