FirstEnergy

FirstEnergy Corp. is an Akron-based investor-owned electric utility whose Ohio subsidiaries — Ohio Edison, the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company, and Toledo Edison — serve much of northern Ohio. It is the corporate source of the money in the HB 6 bribery scandal, the largest public-corruption case in state history.

What it is

A regulated utility holding company. Its former generation arm, FirstEnergy Solutions (now independent as Energy Harbor), owned the Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear plants that HB 6 was written to subsidize.

Key facts and dates

• Secretly funneled roughly $60 million through the dark-money group Generation Now to install Larry Householder as Speaker and pass House Bill 6 (2019), then ~$38 million more to defeat the repeal referendum.
• $230 million DOJ deferred-prosecution penalty (July 2021); admitted the bribery in the agreement.
• $100 million SEC securities-fraud settlement (2024).
• Admitted paying $4.3 million to Sam Randazzo shortly before his appointment as Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) chair.
• Under Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) orders and a settlement approved January 2026, is returning about $275 million to Ohio customers (after a ~$250 million November 2025 penalty order).

Relationships

• Former CEO Chuck Jones and former SVP Mike Dowling face Ohio criminal charges; their retrial is set for September 28, 2026.
• Partners with rival AEP Ohio in the Grid Growth Ohio transmission venture now before federal regulators.
• Regulated by Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO), whose then-chair Sam Randazzo it had secretly paid.

Why it matters in 2026

• The Ohio 2026 Attorney General Race inherits the still-open executive prosecutions.
• FirstEnergy's share of the Grid Growth Ohio cost-shift — which Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) and consumer advocates say pushes most of a $1.1 billion bill onto households — is a live pocketbook fight entering the election.