Paula

AGL Resources announced Thursday that John W. Somerhalder, former executive vice president of El Paso Corp. and president of El Paso’s gas pipeline group, will be its new president and CEO. Former CEO Paula Rosput Reynolds left the company in December to become president and CEO of Safeco Corp. (see Daily GPI, Dec. 8).

Defense lawyers on Thursday tried to chip away at the credibility of Paula Rieker, Enron Corp.’s former corporate secretary, as the trial of Enron founder Kenneth Lay and ex-CEO Jeffrey Skilling ended its fourth week. Despite a day-long grilling by the defense team, Rieker remained composed, carefully answering questions and correcting remarks she thought were misleading. The trial resumes on Monday in U.S. District Court in Houston.

Paula Rieker, Enron Corp.’s former corporate secretary, testified Tuesday ex-CEO Jeffrey Skilling ordered changes to at least two of the company’s quarterly earnings reports to ensure the company would meet or beat Wall Street’s expectations. Rieker also implicated founder Kenneth Lay in some of the fraudulent schemes, testifying he told the board of directors in early October 2001 about accounting issues within Enron Energy Services (EES), but praised the retail unit’s performance to analysts a week later, failing to disclose any problems.

The former managing director of Enron Corp.’s investor relations department, Paula Rieker, pleaded guilty last week to one felony count of insider trading and agreed to cooperate with the Justice Department’s ongoing investigation. In addition, Rieker agreed to pay nearly $500,000 to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to settle separate charges concerning the profit she made on the sale of Enron stock a few months before the company declared bankruptcy in December 2001.

The former managing director of Enron Corp.’s investor relations department, Paula Rieker, pleaded guilty Wednesday to one felony count of insider trading and agreed to cooperate with the Justice Department’s ongoing investigation. In addition, Rieker agreed to pay nearly $500,000 to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to settle separate charges concerning the profit she made on the sale of Enron stock a few months before the company declared bankruptcy in December 2001.

AGL Resources has named Paula G. Rosput to be president and COOof its unbundling natural gas distribution company, Atlanta GasLight. She will assume her new responsibilities Sept. 21. Rosputwas previously president and CEO of Duke Energy Power Services andwas president of PanEnergy Power Services prior to PanEnergy’smerger with Duke Power last year. Prior to that she was senior vicepresident at Pacific Gas Transmission.