PG&E Corporate Ethics ~ So they say

PG&E Appoints Julie M. Kane to New Position as Senior Vice President and Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer; Company Takes Next Step Toward Goal of Establishing a Best-in-Class Corporate Ethics Program

Release Date: March 24, 2015
Contact: PG&E External Communications (415) 973-5930

San Francisco, Calif. — As part of its commitment to achieving a best-in-class ethics and compliance program, PG&E Corporation today announced the appointment of Julie M. Kane to the newly created position of Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer.

With her election by the Board of Directors, Kane will serve as a Senior Vice President directly reporting to PG&E Corporation Chairman, CEO and President Tony Earley with additional reporting responsibility to the Audit Committee of the Board of Directors.

Kane's appointment is the result of a global search for the newly created position of a Senior Vice President to serve as Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer at PG&E. The creation of this position is part of PG&E's commitment to strengthen its ethics and compliance program and performance.

"Julie Kane has deep experience in ethics, compliance and corporate citizenship programs across several industries. She will put that experience to good use as we continue our journey to develop an ethics and compliance program that is second to none. By hiring someone of Julie's caliber, we want all of our customers and their families to know that PG&E is absolutely committed to doing the right thing and acting in a transparent and ethical manner that upholds both the letter and spirit of the law and the company's own Code of Conduct at all times," Earley said.

In her new position, Ms. Kane will be responsible for:

• Building a best-in-class ethics and compliance program and overseeing its implementation;
• Overseeing company-wide programs for compliance reporting and related investigatory processes, and improving processes for prevention, detection, and investigation of any potential non-compliant activities;
• Strengthening ethics and compliance-related training;
• Reinforcing PG&E's ethics and compliance culture, as well as the company's compliance management system; and
• Identifying areas of ethics and compliance risk, and developing preventive and corrective action plans.

Kane joins PG&E, effective May 18, 2015, from her current role as Vice President, General Counsel & Compliance Officer, North America & Corporate Functions, for Avon Products Inc. Prior to her role with Avon, she held a number of senior roles with Novartis Corporation and its affiliates over a 25-year period, culminating in her role as Vice President, Ethics and Compliance for Novartis Corporation. Kane’s other Novartis roles included Vice President, Ethics and Compliance and Corporate Citizenship for Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation, and Vice President, Health, Safety and Environment and Chief Environmental Counsel for Novartis Corporation.

She holds an undergraduate degree in political science from Williams College, Williamstown, Mass., and a law degree from the University of San Francisco School of Law. Kane is a member of the California state bar.

In 2014, PG&E self-reported apparent violations dating back to 2010 related to CPUC rules governing ex parte communications. The company took immediate and definitive action to address these issues as part of its commitment to achieve the highest level of ethics and compliance.

As part of that effort, PG&E created the new position of Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer as a Senior Vice President reporting directly to the PG&E Chairman and CEO Tony Earley and the Board's Audit Committee. Ms. Kane will fill this position.

For a full list of the actions that PG&E has taken to enhance its compliance and ethics program, click here.

About PG&E Corporation

PG&E Corporation (NYSE: PCG) is a Fortune 200 energy-based holding company, headquartered in San Francisco. It is the parent company of Pacific Gas and Electric Company, California's largest investor-owned utility. PG&E serves nearly 16 million Californians across a 70,000 square-mile service area in Northern and Central California. For more information, visit http://www.pgecorp.com/ and www.pge.com..0

Read More

Testimony ends in PG&E criminal trial linked to San Bruno explosion

Testimony ends in PG&E criminal trial linked to San Bruno explosion

By George Avalos, gavalos@bayareanewsgroup.com
Posted:   07/22/2016 02:01:56 PM PDT | Updated:   11 days ago
SAN FRANCISCO -- Calling just three witnesses in a day of testimony, defense attorneys for PG&E on Friday concluded their case in the utility's federal criminal trial stemming from the deadly San Bruno pipeline explosion.

Arguing that numerous PG&E employees live near the utility's gas lines, the defense sought to show that company executives and engineers would not deliberately ignore hazards or intentionally operate the pipeline system in violation of federal rules.

Attorneys called as their final witness Calvin Lui, a PG&E supervising engineer in risk management, to testify about a map depicting where utility employees live in relation to gas lines in the area. The map used blue dots to represent the residences of PG&E employees.

Contact George Avalos at 408-859-5167. Follow him at Twitter.com/georgeavalos.

#PGEWITNESS
 
For a list of my customers and clients click here.  The list references decades of how my customers have been murdered.

1. I am a former PG&E Contract Programmer.  
2. I remain unpaid, 
3. I’ve been beaten regularly for ten years or longer 
4. My software clients and customers over 35 years are: 
1. PG&E, Bank of America 
2. Wells Fargo Bank 
3. AT&T formerly SBC Services (AT&T Reverse merger)
4. Wendy's 
5. Tony Romas 
6.  

The PG&E pipeline blast hole on Glenview Dr. is photographed days after the blast which occurred on Sept. 9, 2010. (Photo courtesy of the Hensel family)

But the testimony appeared to be undercut during cross-examination by prosecutor Hallie Hoffman. Lui was unable to confirm top PG&E executives or supervisors lived near the gas lines.
"No, I don't personally know where all my co-workers live," Lui replied in response to prosecution questioning. "I don't know who all these people are or where they live."

Another defense witness, David Harrison, a longtime PG&E employee in gas systems, testified that the utility undertook numerous pressure tests of its system, including Line 132, the pipeline that blew up in San Bruno.

Harrison's testimony was intended to buttress the company's assertion that it hasn't been ignoring threats to the system and conducted pressure tests to help spot defects or weaknesses in pipes.

Under cross-examination, however, Harrison testified that one of those pressure tests was conducted on Line 132 on Sept. 9, 2011 -- exactly one year after the explosion. The blast killed eight people and leveled a residential neighborhood.

San Francisco-based PG&E faces 13 criminal charges in the case, including 12 counts of violating pipeline safety rules and one charge of obstructing the investigation into the explosion. PG&E has pleaded not guilty to all the charges. If convicted on all the counts, The utility faces a fine of up to $562 million.

PG&E made a series of "deliberate and illegal choices" and subsequently covered up those decisions, in actions that led to the explosion, prosecutors said in opening statements.

But defense attorneys countered in their opening statements that individual employees and executives at PG&E are not guilty of any criminal acts and did their "level best" to operate the system safely and efficiently.

In addition, numerous PG&E executives who were called to testify said during the defense's cross-examination that they never deliberately or intentionally sought to break federal pipeline safety rules and that they did not intentionally attempt to mislead federal investigators.

Closing arguments are scheduled to begin Tuesday, and the case is expected to go to the jury sometime next week.

Read More

Attorneys sum (SCUM) up cases in PG&E trial linked to San Bruno explosion

Attorneys sum up cases in PG&E trial linked to San Bruno explosion

By George Avalos, gavalos@bayareanewsgroup.com

Posted:   07/26/2016 02:37:21 PM PDT | Updated:   33 min. ago

SAN FRANCISCO -- A prosecutor and a defense attorney painted sharply different portraits of PG&E's actions in the years before and the months after a fatal explosion in San Bruno during closing arguments to a jury on Tuesday in the embattled utility's criminal case.

A federal prosecutor claimed in his closing arguments that PG&E made a series of deliberate choices to break pipeline safety regulations as well as to intentionally obstruct an official government probe into the causes of the blast, which killed eight and leveled a San Bruno neighborhood in September 2010.

"PG&E is a company that lost its way," assistant U.S. attorney Jeffrey Schenk told the jury in his summation of the government's case against the utility. "For years, PG&E forced engineers to act more like business people than engineers. They made decisions to maximize profits instead of prioritizing safety."

A defense attorney, however, countered in his closing arguments, that PG&E employees and executives didn't intentionally violate the law.

"Nobody at PG&E is criminal," defense attorney Steven Bauer told the jury. "These are decent people, competent engineers, just trying to do their jobs."

Advertisement

Prosecutors have maintained that PG&E officials and engineers were well aware that they were skirting federal rules by deliberately spiking pressure on their older and more fragile pipelines and intentionally not undertaking relatively costly water pressure tests on pipelines as a way to determine the safety of the pipes.

"The engineers were not confused," Schenk said. "They knew the differences between what the regulations were and what they were doing."

Defense attorneys, though, have countered that PG&E engineers were wrestling with a bewildering array of federal rules about what sort of tests to apply to pipelines in the company's aging system. Bauer argued that the prosecution failed to show a pattern of criminal conduct.

"What is this case about? It's an elaborate second-guessing exercise," Bauer said. "The employees never intentionally and willfully violated the rules."

The day included not only the closing arguments, but also a lengthy hearing that involved sparring between the prosecution and the defense prior to the jury entering the courtroom. The judge decided to recess for the day before defense attorney Bauer had completed his closing arguments.

U.S. District Court Judge Thelton Henderson said he would consider a prosecution motion that the jury be shown photographs of the explosion prior to the start of deliberations. The jury could get the case on Wednesday for its decision.

The utility has been charged with 12 counts of breaking federal laws, including one allegation that it obstructed a National Transportation Safety Board investigation into the explosion and 11 charges that it violated pipeline safety violations.

PG&E has pleaded not guilty to all the charges. If convicted on all the counts, PG&E faces a fine of up to $562 million.

Contact George Avalos at 408-859-5167. Follow him at Twitter.com/georgeavalos.

Read More