State begins seeing gas settlement cash

By Frank Cho
Advertiser Staff Writer

Three of the five oil companies that settled with the state this year in its price-fixing antitrust lawsuit paid out $13.29 million yesterday for their part in the $20 million deal.

Chevron and Texaco each paid $4.99 million, and Unocal paid $3.3 million to the clerk's office at federal court in Honolulu.

A check for about $4 million will be sent to Spencer Hosie, the San Francisco attorney who led the state's antitrust case, and the balance will go to the state's Highway Fund.

Shell Oil and Tosco Corp., which agreed to pay $5 million and $3.3 million, respectively, have until the end of the month to pay up their share of the deal.

As part of the settlement, the oil companies have admitted no wrongdoing.

The state filed an anti-trust lawsuit in 1998 accusing divisions of Chevron, Shell, Texaco, Unocal, BHP Hawaii, Tesoro and Tosco of fixing gas prices and allocating market share among themselves as early as 1987.

The state settled with BHP and Tesoro in 1999 for $15 million and with the remaining defendants in January for another $20 million.

Excluding attorney fees and expenses, the state will net about $23 million from the $35 million settlement.