Anonymous letters claim FPL broke law

TALLAHASSEE — State utility regulators and Florida Power & Light’s parent company said Monday they would investigate anonymous allegations that FPL managers broke the law and committed fraud by forcing employees to provide inaccurate and misleading information to regulators and shareholders.

The allegations were made in two letters written by people who claim to be disgruntled FPL employees and sent to FPL Group Chairman Lew Hay, members of the company’s board of directors and the Florida Public Service Commission.

The letters, dated Feb. 3 and Jan. 20, include no specific examples but named certain FPL vice presidents who allegedly forced employees to “manipulate facts, data and information, and present half-truths” to securities regulators and the PSC during the just-completed rate case. The PSC in January granted FPL only $75 million of the $1.3 billion it sought in higher base rates.

Among the claims: Employees that work in departments that handle electricity demand, communications, investor relations, customer service and development were ordered to provide inaccurate and incomplete data to the PSC regarding FPL’s customer usage for the rate case; they were required to manipulate data for the natural gas pipeline case; and they were told to provide shareholders with “incomplete or inaccurate facts’’ on new power plants and renewable energy.

They also alleged that the company was keeping its expenses “artificially high” so that it could come back to the PSC “later this year or next year” with a second rate-increase request.

The writers signed the letter: “Respectfully submitted, A growing group of FPL employees who seek change management [sic] from our CEO and our Board,” and they said that two of them had spoken to a lawyer and were seeking protection under whistle-blower laws.

Hay responded Monday in an e-mail to all FPL Group employees saying the company had conducted an internal investigation of about 150 employees after the Jan. 20 letter and “identified no evidence supporting any of the generalized claims made by the anonymous letter.”

He said that in light of the more-specific allegations of fraud in the Feb. 3 letter, the company had hired an outside law firm, Carlton Fields, to conduct an internal investigation and determine whether they claims “have any basis in fact.”

“We do not condone the conduct alleged in the anonymous letters, but we cannot address unsupported and unsubstantiated claims,” Hay wrote. He said that FPL officials would not “take negative action against anyone who honestly and forthrightly raised legitimate concerns.”

The employees interviewed were required to sign a confidentiality agreement in which they promised not to speak to anyone about the nature of the investigation or the questions they were asked.

In his e-mail, Hay linked to an internal Web site that posted the Feb. 3 letter, but blacked out that names of the three FPL managers who were the target of the allegations —