A person who violates any provision of the Service Contract Regulation Act or an order or rule of the superintendent issued or adopted pursuant thereto may be assessed a civil penalty by the superintendent of not more than five thousand dollars ($5,000) for each act or violation, not to exceed an aggregate amount of one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000) for violations of a similar nature. For the purposes of this section, violations shall be deemed to be of a similar nature if the violations consist of the same or similar conduct, regardless of the number of times the conduct occurred.