Documents
in state suit
to be public

The filings are part
of the antitrust suit
against oil companies

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By Tim Ruel
truel@starbulletin.com

Principal documents in the state's antitrust lawsuit against the major oil companies could become available to the public for the first time by the end of next week.

The state and the oil companies have agreed to unseal documents relating to the companies' prior motions for summary judgment, according to Monday filings at U.S. District Court. The agreement does not cover the rest of the documents that have been filed under seal in the case.

About one-third of the nearly 180 summary judgment documents will contain deletions of specific passages. The state has agreed to let the oil companies block out information that could unfairly benefit competitors. The other two-thirds of the documents would contain no deletions.

Two companies, Tesoro Petroleum Corp. and Aloha Petroleum Ltd., have the next few days to say whether certain information should not become public.

For example, Tesoro wants to protect portions of two documents that the company used in contemplating its 1998 purchase of BHP Hawaii Inc. Tesoro and BHP were originally among the seven companies sued by the state in October 1998, but both firms settled the suit two years ago by paying the state $15 million.

Aloha Petroleum was not a defendant in the case. Rather, the state has argued that the other companies tried to punish Aloha for its price-cutting strategy.

The agreement to unseal the summary motion documents would require the final signature of senior U.S. District Judge Samuel King.

After that, it could take a couple days for attorneys to physically remove all the documents from seal.

In November, King insisted that the state and the companies come up with a plan to unseal the documents. King said he was nervous about making a decision on summary judgment without the public having a chance to see the arguments.

King's ruling on summary judgment had been expected to come at any time, but instead, the state and oil companies agreed earlier this month to settle the case.

As part of the settlement, the state will receive $20 million from the five remaining companies, or about 1 percent of the $2 billion the state had asked for, according to people familiar with the deal.

Details of the settlement have not been officially announced.