The Hotel Bristol Warsaw, where state regulators met with a utility executive.

Southern California Edison was fined almost $17 million Thursday for violations related to a meeting in Poland, where a company executive and the state’s former top utility regulator sketched out deal points in secret to divide costs for the failure of the San Onofre nuclear plant.

The California Public Utilities Commission imposed the penalty after a discussion that lasted just over five minutes.

The commission did not address whether to reopen the settlement deal — approved by the commission before the secret meeting was revealed — which assigns utility customers 70 percent of the $4.7 billion in shutdown costs.

According to the commission, Edison failed to report eight ex parte or one-sided communications it had with regulators between 2013 and 2014. The utility also twice violated ethics rules by omitting information or misleading the commission, regulators said.

Under commission rules, backchannel discussions are permitted but must be disclosed within three days so everyone involved in a proceeding is aware of the communication and has a chance to respond.

The San Onofre power plant on San Diego County’s north coast shut down in January 2012 amid a radiation leak spurred by a faulty steam generator replacement project.

Former Edison executive Stephen Pickett met with former commission President Michael Peevey at the luxury Hotel Bristol in Warsaw in March 2013 to discuss a framework for closing an investigation into the failure and dividing the costs between ratepayers and stockholders.

The company did not publicly disclosed the Warsaw meeting until this past February, after The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that notes on Hotel Bristol stationery were found during a search of Peevey’s home by criminal investigators probing regulator coziness with utility executives.

The notes were released in April. Deal points listed on the two handwritten pages are substantially similar to terms eventually approved by the commission in November 2014.

“Several communications were not properly noticed or reported,” said Commissioner Catherine J.K. Sandoval, reading from prepared remarks. “The commission’s rules that require notice and reporting and the failure of SCE to follow these rules to protect the integrity of the decision-making process merit the penalty.”

Other commissioners offered concurring comments, and the vote was unanimous.

Commissioner Michel Florio recused himself from the decision because he engaged in one of the communications that went unreported by Edison.

City officials in San Bruno, where a pipeline explosion killed eight people in 2010, released emails Wednesday showing Florio engaged in backchannel communications with pipeline owner Pacific Gas & Electric. Emails made public last year show Florio agreed to help get a utility-friendly judge assigned to a PG&E case.

Edison issued a statement Thursday saying it was disappointed with the penalty and that rules governing the private communications should be clarified.

“We respectfully disagree with the commission’s decision,” President Pedro Pizarro said. “The decision reinforces the need for clearer ex parte rules, and we support comprehensive reform of those rules.”

Pizarro said the company already has strengthened its internal policies to ensure employees understand their obligation to adhere to the highest ethical standards.

Consumer groups called the $16.7 million fine a pittance when compared to the billions of dollars Edison and minority plant owner San Diego Gas & Electric were allowed to charge ratepayers to cover costs of the 2012 plant closure.

They complained that regulators penalized Edison for secret meetings that shaped the outcome of the San Onofre settlement, but left the terms in tact.

“This is a big win for Edison,” said John Geesman, an attorney representing the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility. “You pay a $16 million fine, you get your wrist slapped, you pocket a couple billion dollars. That’s a phenomenal return on investment.”

The alliance said in a filing last month that the Edison penalty should be almost $42 million, or the maximum $50,000 per day for each day between the March 2013 meeting in Warsaw and the day Edison disclosed the meeting nearly two years later.

Geesman requested a hearing in the case so he could present evidence to support his argument but commissioners denied the application without comment.

San Diego consumer attorney Michael Aguirre, who is suing the commission to try and reverse the San Onofre agreement, said the commission is tolerating illegal behavior by not revisiting the 2014 settlement.

“Normally when you rob a bank you have to give the money back — you don’t just get fined,” he said. “This is an absurdity. This is more of a manipulation. This is public relations.”

The fine is not the largest for the company. In 2008, Edison was fined $30 million for falsifying records to boost manager incentive payments. Edison noted that the inaccuracies were discovered and self-reported by the company.

In adopting the $16.7 million assessment Thursday, the commission took no action on two motions that remain outstanding. The first is a year-old request to rehear the settlement case outright; the second asks commissioners to modify the existing agreement.

The fine will come from Edison shareholders and be paid into the state’s general fund.