SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Emails showing California regulators and Pacific Gas & Electric Co. appearing to negotiate which judge would be assigned to hear one of the utility’s rate cases led the state’s top regulator to remove himself from two PG&E cases and four senior officials on both sides to resign.

The emails released Monday show the commission ultimately assigned to the case a judge for whom PG&E had expressed a preference, rather than another judge who the utility said “has a history of being very hard on us.”