SK Energy Americas, a sub-subsidiary of South Korean firm SK Innovation, has agreed to pay 35 billion won in settlement money in a lawsuit filed by the U.S. state of California. That’s about 25-point-three million U.S. dollars. 

According to Bloomberg on Thursday, California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced that the state reached a 50 million dollar settlement with gas trading firms SK Energy Americas and Vitol Group after it raised suspicions that the firms colluded to manipulate local gas prices.  

The report said the two companies agreed to each pay half of the settlement money.  

California filed the suit against the two companies in May 2020, alleging that the firms colluded in driving up prices of some ten million gallons of gasoline at the time a gas refinery exploded in Torrance, Los Angeles in 2015.