Williams director felt threatened to back ETE deal -trial

Simply by Tom Hals
GEORGETOWN, Del., June 20 (Reuters) : A Williams Cos Inc board member testified she felt pressured by her very own company to support the $20 billion merger streaming bokep jepang along with pipeline company Energy Move Equity LP, which ETE lawyers sought to show as proof that Williams misrepresented its board's support for the deal.
The two companies are suing each other as Energy Move Equity, or ETE, searches for a way to back again out of the deal, which would create one of the world's biggest operators of pipeline in order to carry oil and gasoline.
The two-day trial in Delaware's Court of Chancery before Vice Chancellor Sam Glasscock opened on Mon.
Williams is asking the particular judge to force ETE to complete the takeover, alleging that the business and its chief executive, Dallas billionaire Kelcy Warren, have purposely worked to scuttle the agreed-upon offer.
ETE has countersued, arguing that Williams has breached the merger agreement, within part by misrepresenting the particular level of its board's support for the deal.
On Monday, ETE lawyers played video deposition accounts of director Kathleen Cooper which they said illustrated that Williams board users were threatened with the risk of a campaign to have them removed if they will failed to support the offer.
Cooper voted against the deal. She was amongst the five directors upon Williams' 13-member board that did not back the particular takeover.
Asked during the girl deposition earlier this 30 days if she had experienced threatened to change her vote, she said she did.
Williams' chairman, Honest MacInnis, downplayed Cooper's testimony and said the board discussed the possible fall-out from a vote towards the deal.
"There has been never a threat, " MacInnis told the court.



BUYER'S REMORSE
The two-day trial comes just days before a scheduled June 27 election by Williams shareholders upon whether they want in order to accept the offer proposed in September by ETE.
While the deal was long-sought by Warren, Williams said he soon came down with buyer's remorse plus began to search with regard to a way out as an energy price slump deepened.
ETE has made very clear that it believes the particular deal has ceased to be attractive. It has slashed estimates regarding expected cost savings and said it would most likely need to cut distributions to shareholders entirely next yr if it has to total the deal.
ETE offers argued the deal cannot close because its attorneys at Latham & Watkins were unable to declare that will it would be tax-free. The particular company originally raised the tax problem in April and rejected two achievable solutions proposed by Williams.
Williams sued in May, accusing Warren of failing to meet its obligation to get the merger done by June 28, when ETE can walk away with out penalty.
Williams' legal group on Monday showed a video deposition of Jamie Welch, who had been fired earlier this year as ETE's chief financial officer.
This individual said that as early as January, Warren had grown opposed to the offer. He began pressing their management team and attorneys to understand ETE's rights along with respect to terminating the particular deal.
"He feared for future years of the Energy Move enterprise if the offer with Williams needed to close on its current conditions, " Welch said within the video played in court. He said Warren feared an "implosion" of the business. (Additional reporting by Michael Erman in New York; Editing by Matthew Lewis)