As PG&E’s shares plunged this week, investors were hungry for information about how California’s politicians and the utilities commission might respond to the financial pressures on the company.

On Thursday afternoon, Bank of America Merrill Lynch held an hourlong call for investment clients in which Mr. Picker took part.

Edward Randolph, director of the commission’s energy division, who was also on the call, said the officials had stressed that it was not in the interest of PG&E customers to allow the utility to go into bankruptcy.

“It creates a lot of uncertainty around the companies’ ability to have access to cash to have money, which is critical for the utility to buy electricity and to buy natural gas,” Mr. Randolph said in an interview Friday. “Absent a road map to a smooth transition to an alternative to PG&E, we still need an entity in Northern California that can provide electric and gas service.”

So the commission’s representatives told the investors that they intended to make any liability for fires in 2017 and 2018 part of a single review in considering the effect on customer rates. Such a review would take place in four or five years, after claims have been litigated.

Although the investor call was not publicly announced, the price and volume of PG&E’s shares began to rise while it was going on. The commission later issued a news release.

Earlier in the week, a spokesman for the legislation’s sponsor said the recently enacted law focused on 2017 — when fires devastated California’s main wine region — and on years to come, without a specific provision for fires this year. But Mr. Randolph said that because the law allowed consideration of the utility’s financial health in setting consumer rates, the commission could take any liability from this year’s fires into account.