(Finance) – The county of Mauiin Hawaii (USA), has sued Hawaiian Electric accusing the power company of acting negligently by failing to shut down its equipment despite warnings that hurricane winds could bring down power lines, sparking fires. According to the authorities, the downing of power lines sparked the fires that killed at least 115 peopledisplacing hundreds more.
The “major and catastrophic” losses from the fires”could have easily been preventedif the power company implemented a plan to shut down the power, the county said.
Meanwhile, Hawaiian Electric said that will suspend the dividend starting in the third quarter and announced other measures to strengthen its balance sheet.
Furthermore, S&P Global has demoted Hawaiian Electric and all of its subsidiaries to the rating “B-“ from “BB-“, citing the company’s likely difficult access to capital markets.