Sawnee EMC and PNG Reach Settlement on Budget Billing Accounts

Date: 9/25/01

Contact: Melisa Watson, Director Marketing

Sawnee Electric Membership Corporation (Sawnee) announced today that it has reached a settlement with a natural gas marketer for which Sawnee provided billing, customer care and other services until the marketer sold its customer accounts in late 1999 as part of the marketer’s Chapter 11 Bankruptcy case. Peachtree Natural Gas (PNG) had contracted with Sawnee and other EMCs in the state to purchase customer related services as a part of a multi-year agreement. “This brings an end to a long and complex review,” states Michael A. Goodroe, Executive Vice President of Sawnee EMC. “We are glad that the parties could reach a settlement and resolve the remaining outstanding issues,” he adds.

Specifics of the settlement were not disclosed. However, one of the key issues was the resolution of balances that customers paid to PNG for budget billed accounts. “We will be refunding the balances owed to our budget billed accounts as of the time of the sale of the customers’ accounts,” states Melisa Watson, Marketing Director of Sawnee. “ We felt that Georgia law supported this refund and, with the settlement, we can close this aspect of our review.”

Former PNG customers who utilized the budget billing plan offered by PNG through Sawnee EMC as a part of their monthly billing options and who had a “credit” balance when their accounts were sold by PNG will receive a refund on their October 2001 Sawnee bill.

Questions about this refund should be directed to Sawnee’s Customer Service Center by calling (770) 887-2363, ext 7-111, or customers can email their questions to customerservice@sawnee.com.

Sawnee EMC is an electric distribution utility headquartered in Cumming, Georgia, serving over 108,000 customers in Forsyth, Fulton, Cherokee, Gwinnett, Dawson, Lumpkin and Hall Counties in Northern Georgia. Sawnee EMC has a network of over 7,049 miles of distribution facilities and physical plant in excess of $260 million. Incorporated in 1938, Sawnee EMC is the third largest electric membership cooperative in Georgia and one of the fastest growing cooperatives nationwide.

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