A company paid $500,000 by Maine regulators to study the state’s electric grid may have been ineligible to receive the contract based on conflict of interest rules.

London Economics International was the winning bidder on the study and was tasked with evaluating the pros and cons of converting Maine’s two investor-owned electric utilities to consumer ownership.

The Maine Public Utilities Commission wrote last year that any firm that had worked for either utility in the past five years would be ineligible to avoid any conflicts of interest. But the Bangor Daily News reported Monday that London Economics International was paid $37,000 for work done for Emera in 2018.