PPL agrees to cooperate with state examination

PPL Corp. has agreed to drop its opposition to and cooperate with the Pennsylvania Treasury Department’s ongoing unclaimed property examination of the company, Treasurer Stacy Garrity announced Thursday.

“I applaud PPL for making this decision,” Garrity said in a news release. “Pennsylvania’s unclaimed property law is designed to protect consumers and ensure that they can reclaim what is owed to them. Every company has a duty to comply with the law, and I will always fight to return unclaimed property to its rightful owners. This case involves unclaimed investments in PPL, so the company’s decision to comply is an important win for PPL shareholders.”

The state treasury filed an enforcement action against the Allentown electric utility in Commonwealth Court in May 2019, saying PPL refused to provide requested records electronically and claimed the treasury didn’t have the authority to demand and check the accuracy of those records.

In June, the court required PPL to provide records to treasury auditors and said the department had the authority to conduct unclaimed property compliance examinations, to demand and receive relevant records in electronic format, and to conduct accuracy checks.

A consent order was approved by the court last week. PPL is working with the treasury to produce all of the requested documents and information, the department said.

The Treasury Department said it routinely conducts unclaimed property audits of companies. There’s more than $4.5 billion in unclaimed property; about 1 in 10 Pennsylvanians is owed unclaimed property, and the average claim is worth about $1,600. To search Treasury’s database and see if any unclaimed property is owed to you, go to patreasury.gov/ unclaimed-property.