A group of Chicago commercial property owners, including the owners of the historic Burnham Center, have added their names to the growing list of businesses and individuals suing electrical utility ComEd over its role in a bribery scandal that has implicated Illinois House Speaker and Democratic Party Chairman Michael Madigan.
On Aug. 24, attorneys with the firm of Hughes Socol Piers Resnick & Dym, of Chicago, filed a class action lawsuit in Chicago federal court on behalf of the property owners against ComEd and its parent company, Exelon.
Named plaintiffs in the action include “the owners of four large commercial buildings” in Chicago. These include TFO Golub Burnham LLC, which owns the Burnham Center in the North Loop; TFO Golub IT 2.0 LLC, which owns the International Tower, near the junction of Cumberland Avenue and the Kennedy Expressway; South Branch LLC, which owns a commercial building at 1200 W. 35th St., Chicago; and Rockwell on the River LLC, which owns an events center at 3057 N. Rockwell St., Chicago.
The lawsuit centers on the profits and regulatory advantages ComEd earned from allegedly bribing Madigan and his associates to pass legislation favorable to the electrical utility.
The complaint is one of several such class actions launched against ComEd over the alleged bribery scheme involving Madigan. Those bribery allegations were established in charging documents filed against ComEd by federal prosecutors earlier this summer. Under a so-called deferred prosecution deal, ComEd agreed to pay a fine of $200 million.
The deal also included a requirement that ComEd and its officials continue to cooperate with federal investigators for at least three more years as they continue to investigate “individuals or other entities” identified or implicated in the ComEd bribery case.
According to federal prosecutors, ComEd specifically sought for at least nine years to use bribes to enlist the aid of “Public Official A,” identified by prosecutors as the Illinois House Speaker. Madigan has served as Speaker of the State House for nearly all of the past four decades.
Madigan also serves as chairman of the Illinois Democratic Party. He has refused to resign either position.
Because of both roles, Madigan allies and associates are found throughout all levels of state and local governments and agencies in Illinois.
According to federal prosecutors, ComEd agreed to reward Madigan loyalists with cushy “ghost payroll” jobs and contracts in exchange for Madigan’s support of legislation that was worth billions of dollars to ComEd.
While at least two other lawsuits directly target Madigan as a defendant, the commercial property owners’ class action names only ComEd and Exelon as defendants.
“Speaker Madigan’s control over legislative matters was not only as a result of his political and financial power over Democratic members of the Illinois Legislature (and others) as Chairman of the Illinois Democratic Party, but also because as Speaker of the House, he exercises complete control over what measures are called for a vote in the House of Representatives,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit asserts ComEd reaped three key pieces of legislation in Springfield from 2011-2016, as well as rate hikes that resulted in massive electric bill increases for large commercial electric customers, like them.
While rates went up for everyone in ComEd’s Illinois territory, the building owners said bills paid by “large commercial ratepayers” soared by 25-78% from 2011-2019.
This resulted in ComEd gaining as much as $860 million in profits over that span, the lawsuit said.
The complaint asserted 54% of those profits, or $450 million, “came from customers in the large commercial ratepayer categories.”
The lawsuit accuses ComEd of racketeering in a conspiracy with Speaker Madigan and his allies.
They further accuse ComEd of violating Illinois’ consumer fraud law.
They have asked the court to expand the action to include a class of additional plaintiffs, that would include ComEd’s large commercial utility customers since 2012.
They are seeking tripled damages under the federal racketeering and conspiracy law, as well as unspecified punitive damages, plus attorney fees.
They have also asked the court to order ComEd to disgorge “all funds wrongfully held … that unjustly enriched” ComEd.
The plaintiffs are represented by attorneys Matthew J. Piers, Mark Dym, Chirag G. Badlani, Charles D. Wysong and Emily R. Brown, all of Chicago.