UNITED STATES SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

   SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION v. JOHN P. VENNERS, U.S. District
   Court for the District of Columbia, Civil Action Number 00CV01547
   (HHK)
   (June 29, 2000) (D.D.C.)

   Litigation Release No. 16613 / June 29, 2000

   SEC SETTLES "MARKING THE CLOSE" MANIPULATION CASE AGAINST JOHN P.
   VENNERS

   The Securities and Exchange Commission today filed a Complaint in the
   United States District Court for the District of Columbia alleging
   that from March 1997 through June 1998 John P. Venners, 50, a
   consultant to KFX, Inc., artificially raised the closing price of KFX
   stock by purchasing at or near the close of the market. The Complaint
   alleges that Venners "marked the close" in order to increase the value
   of equity in a margin account where he held a substantial number of
   KFX shares. The Complaint further alleges that Venners' manipulative
   conduct enabled him to avoid margin maintenance calls on some
   occasions, and to decrease the dollar amount he had to pay to satisfy
   margin calls on other occasions. According to the Complaint, Venners'
   actions conveyed false information to the market concerning the demand
   for KFX's stock and its price level free of manipulative influence,
   and misled the securities brokerage firm issuing the margin calls as
   to the value of the collateral for its margin loan to him.

   Venners, without admitting or denying the allegations of the
   Complaint, simultaneously consented to the entry of a permanent
   injunction against violations of the antifraud provisions of the
   federal securities laws and agreed to pay a $10,000 civil penalty.

   Specifically, the Complaint alleges the following
     * Beginning in March 1997, after KFX's market value had declined,
       Venners received an increasing number of margin maintenance calls
       in a margin account in which he held 102,000 shares of KFX stock.
       In order to satisfy the calls and prevent additional ones, Venners
       began marking the close. In March and early April 1997 Venners
       marked the close four times, purchasing KFX shares on three of
       those occasions during the last ten minutes of the trading day.
     * In an effort to conceal his conduct, in late April 1997 Venners
       stopped marking the close through his margin account and opened a
       new account at a separate broker-dealer. When he opened this new
       account, Venners did not disclose to his new broker the existence
       of the margin account in which he held a substantial number of KFX
       shares.
     * During the period from April 24, 1997, through March 6, 1998,