Virginia Businesses in the News


Legal and Regulatory

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For the Record is compiled from company releases, business journals and newspaper reports from around the state. If you have an item for these listings: • Mail it to: For the Record Virginia Business Magazine P.O. Box 85333 Richmond, VA 23293 • E-mail it to ForTheRecord@va-business.com • Fax it to (804) 649-6311

Dominion Resources Inc., a utilities company headquartered in Richmond, discovered internal violations of federal rules regulating the sharing of natural-gas market information. After reporting the violations to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the company was fined $500,000 and ordered to refund $4.5 million to customers. The violation concerned the distribution of gas-storage information within the company by e-mail and to outside parties. In addition to Dominion’s fines, Northern Illinois Gas Co. was penalized $600,000 and Columbia Gas Transmission Corp. $2.5 million. (8/3/04, Richmond Times-Dispatch)

Smithfield Foods Inc., a Smithfield-based meat processor, faces a Sept. 20 hearing before the National Labor Relations Board on a complaint by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union that the company, in concert with local sheriff’s deputies, allegedly engaged in coercive conduct against maintenance workers at its Bladen County, N.C., plant. The complaint is one of a series of ongoing actions involving labor unrest at the facility. (8/5/04, Daily Press)