I was looking at a brand new panel today. They had installed the ground bars directly onto the panel body. The neutral bars and wires were along both sides the breakers, as normal. There was no bond wire that I could see between the neutral bars and the ground bars. The panel was bonded to the neutral via the bonding screw to the neutral bar. Is it acceptable to use the panel body itself as the conductor between the neutral and ground bars? I thought that a solid bar or a #8 wire was required to bond the ground to the neutral.

Jim