Oil settlement approved

By Frank Cho
Advertiser Staff Writer

U.S. District Court Judge Samuel King yesterday gave final approval to the state's $20 million settlement of its three-year legal battle with Hawai'i's oil companies about gasoline price-fixing allegations.

Under the settlement approved by King yesterday, the oil companies have 30 days to move the money into the state's Highways Fund.

Chevron, the market leader in Hawai'i, will pay the state $5 million. Shell and Texaco also agreed to pay $5 million each to settle the case. Unocal and Tosco Corp. will pay $3.3 million and $1.7 million, respectively.

King also approved attorneys' fees and expenses that were previously submitted in the case.

Excluding attorney fees and expenses — and including $15 million in a settlement with several oil companies earlier in the case — the state will net about $23 million.

The state's $2 billion lawsuit against Hawai'i oil companies said the companies kept gasoline prices in Hawai'i artificially high through a complex scheme of "product exchange" agreements with one another while forcing competitors to pay higher rates for the same gasoline.

When the state filed the lawsuit in 1998, it accused divisions of Chevron, Shell, Texaco, Unocal and Tosco of fixing gas prices and allocating market share among themselves as early as 1987.

BHP Hawai'i and Tesoro, named in the original suit, were dismissed from the case as part of a $15 million settlement in November 1999.