COLUMBUS, Ohio, Oct. 1, 2003 - American Electric Power (NYSE: AEP) has learned that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has filed a civil action against the company in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio.

AEP has not been served with a copy of the complaint, which was filed late yesterday, but believes that it is based on claims related to the submitting of natural gas trading information to certain trade publications by gas traders no longer employed by AEP.

After learning in September 2002 of false reporting of gas price information at an unrelated company, AEP immediately undertook its own internal investigation of gas price reporting practices. AEP determined that five then-current employees had submitted inaccurate gas trading information to trade publications. The company immediately terminated the five employees, self-reported the incident to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the CFTC, publicly announced the employee terminations and put into place procedures to prevent a reoccurrence of the inaccurate submission of gas trading information.

“We have been cooperating with the CFTC in an attempt to seek resolution to this matter,” said Jeffrey D. Cross, AEP’s general counsel. “While the possibility of civil action always existed, we are surprised the CFTC chose to file at this time. We still believe that a settlement is possible and we are open to that possibility.

“We discovered and self-reported these activities,” Cross said. “We have no indication that any current employees were involved in the activities.”

American Electric Power owns and operates more than 42,000 megawatts of generating capacity in the United States and select international markets and is the largest electricity generator in the U.S. AEP is also one of the largest electric utilities in the United States, with almost 5 million customers linked to AEP’s 11-state electricity transmission and distribution grid. The company is based in Columbus, Ohio.

The comments set forth above include forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Although AEP and its registrant subsidiaries believe that their expectations are based on reasonable assumptions, any such statements may be influenced by factors that could cause actual outcomes and results to be materially different from those projected. Among the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements are: electric load and customer growth; abnormal weather conditions; available sources and costs of fuels; availability of generating capacity; the speed and degree to which competition is introduced to our service territories; the ability to recover stranded costs in connection with existing and possible additional deregulation; new legislation and government regulation; oversight and/or investigation of the energy sector or its participants; our ability to successfully control costs; the success of acquiring new business ventures and disposing of existing investments that no longer match our corporate profile; international and country-specific developments affecting foreign investments including the disposition of any current foreign investments and potential additional foreign investments; the economic climate and growth in our service territory and changes in market demand and demographic patterns; inflationary trends; electricity and gas market prices; interest rates; liquidity in the banking, capital and wholesale power markets; actions of rating agencies; changes in technology, including the increased use of distributed generation within our transmission and distribution service territory; and other risks and unforeseen events, including wars, the effects of terrorism, embargoes and other catastrophic events.