A former Enron Corp executive, Raymond Bowen, agreed to pay $500,000 to settle charges of earnings manipulation in 2000, the US Securities and Exchange Commission said on Monday. Bowen, who was managing director of Enron North America and co-head of its commercial transactions group, was barred from serving as an officer or director of a public company for five years, the SEC said in a statement.

The SEC said Bowen oversaw portions of Enron North America's merchant portfolio during the second and part of the third quarters of 2000 and said he should have been aware of the $100 million increase to the book value of Enron's largest merchant asset, Mariner Energy Inc.

The increase was recorded in the fourth quarter of 2000 to generate fictitious earnings to meet Enron's targets, the securities regulators said.

"Bowen knew or was reckless in not knowing of a scheme to manipulate Enron's publicly-reported earnings through a variety of devices designed to produce materially false and misleading financial results," the SEC said.

As part of the settlement Bowen did not admit or deny the SEC allegations.

Copyright Reuters, 2005