By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Jan. 6 -- Frontier Oil Corp., Houston, announced a delay in the trial involving its lawsuit against Holly Corp., Dallas. The trial was to have started in Delaware Chancery Court on Jan. 12.
A new trial date is expected to be announced next week, but it appears likely that the trial will not begin before the end of February, Frontier said.
The trial delay was caused by Holly's late production on Jan. 2 of 500 pages of handwritten notes and other documents, most of which were reported to have come from the files of its general counsel. Frontier is evaluating the impact of this extraordinary development and is considering its remedies.
In addition to agreeing to delay the trial, Holly has agreed in a hearing before the Vice Chancellor of the Delaware Court to pay Frontier's costs and fees reasonably necessitated by this late document production.
Frontier sued Holly, alleging that Holly breached a contract by trying to amend the terms of a $450 million merger agreement (OGJ Online, Aug. 26, 2003).
Holly and Frontier agreed to a transaction involving cash and stock (OGJ, Apr. 14, 2003, p. 34). But Holly later requested an all-cash transaction because of concerns about Frontier's financial exposure regarding about environmental lawsuits in California.
In court documents, Frontier said the value of the proposed deal would have stayed the same. The original terms called for Holly stockholders to receive one share of Frontier common stock for each outstanding share of Holly common stock, plus a $172.5 million cash payment.
