Texaco and the $10 Billion Jury

Book excerpt: Shannon was a juror in the 1984 Houston trial that awarded $10.5 billion damages to the Pennzoil Company in its lawsuit against Texaco for preempting Pennzoil's supposedly binding merger agreement with Getty Oil. The verdict stunned the business world and Texaco declared bankruptcy; a compromise four years later reduced the award to $3 billion. With excerpts from court testimony and legal arguments between lawyers, bankers and executives, Shannon reconstructs the four-month trial, adding narrative and interpretations of his own. He tells how jury-room deliberations led to a consensus that Texaco had interfered intentionally, and therefore illegally, with Pennzoil's ``done deal'' and must pay a $3 billion penalty in addition to the $7.5 billion Pennzoil claimed to have lost by not acquiring Getty's oil reserves. Major ad/promo; author tour. (June) Copyright 1988 Cahners Business Information.