A US Supreme Court ruling may help investors recover millions from a nuclear fraud.

The court ruled this week that the Securities & Exchange Commission can obtain court orders to recoup ill-gotten gains from those who violate federal securities laws.

SCANA investors lost millions of dollars in a failed nuclear reactor project abandoned by the Lexington County-based holding company’s executives.

Federal officials say SCANA executive Steve Byrne and possibly other SCANA executives lied about the nuclear project’s failures.

This allowed them to dupe investors and the Public Service Commission and charge ratepayers almost $2 billion in higher rates.

The ruling may dramatically reshape how the SEC is able to recover investor losses from insider trading and other large-scale financial fraud.

Courts began ordering disgorgement in the 1970s.

It has constituted the largest portion of monetary remedies in SEC enforcement actions.

The high court ruled 8-1 that disgorgement is equitable relief if it does not “exceed a wrongdoer’s net profits and is awarded to victims.”

The case stems from a 2016 SEC lawsuit against Charles Liu and his wife Xin Wang.

They were charged with a $27 million fraudulent scheme to get investment in a cancer treatment center they never built.

Monday’s opinion leaves in place a system that has allowed the agency to obtain court orders for billions in penalty fees from securities law violators.

But judges will have to limit the penalties to the amount of ill-gotten gains and forego any additional fines, which were acceptable before Monday’s ruling.

For SCANA investors to get money back, they may have to show how much the fraud cost them.

A trial judge may have to decide whether specific SCANA executives would have to repay them.