Hawaii, oil companies Attorneys for the state of Hawaii and five oil companies yesterday wrapped up their agreement to settle a case that began with state charges of illegal agreements to fix the price of gasoline.
OK verbal pact
Details of the $20 million
settlement in the price-fixing
case are expected next weekBy Russ Lynch
rlynch@starbulletin.comGov. Ben Cayetano said Thursday that the deal will be worth $20 million or more to the state.
That is only about 1 percent of the $2 billion the government had sought but it ends litigation that had been running up hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal bills.
The deal still is not final, but a verbal agreement reached by all the parties yesterday took care of some final details and paved the way for a formal court filing of the settlement as early as Tuesday, according to sources close to the process.
The sources said they were not able to disclose the details but they will come out when the final motions are filed next week.
A tentative settlement in the three-year-old price-fixing case was reached Jan. 16 and was announced then by Clyde Matsui, who served as mediator in the suit.
Yesterday's pact finishes up the details, agreed to by the five oil companies remaining in the suit, Chevron Corp., Shell Oil Co., Texaco Inc., Tosco Corp. and Unocal Corp.
In 2000, two of the original defendants, BHP Hawaii Inc. and Tesoro Petroleum Corp., settled with the state and agreed to pay the state a total of $15 million.