The very first jury trial in the Texas Business Court got underway Tuesday in a small, warm courtroom on the seventh floor of the Harris County Family Law Center in downtown Houston.
The Business Court, which launched in September 2024, does not yet have dedicated courtroom space, so the lawyers, plaintiffs, defendants and observers found themselves in the unusual venue, which sits across the street from the historic 1910 Courthouse, where the two judges in the Eleventh Division — Sofia Adrogué and Grant Dorfman — office. Judge Adrogué is presiding over the trial, which is expected to last seven days.
As opening statements began Tuesday morning, 12 jurors and two alternates sat in the jury box, just a couple of feet away from four large tables filling nearly the entirety of the well of the courtroom, where 16 lawyers and one bailiff sat.
The dispute pits the lawyer Albert Theodore “Ted” Powers against three members of the Berry family, who, through their businesses, is one of the largest private employers in Corpus Christi. Its origins can be traced back to an idea Lawrence Berry had in 2018 to build a world-class crude export terminal outside of Corpus Christi that could receive oil from the Permian Basin and the Eagle Ford Shale. The product could be stored in Aransas Pass and then loaded onto tanker ships from Harbor Island before being shipped anywhere in the world.
But the family needed a large investment partner who could contribute between $650 million and $700 million to see the project through to fruition. Enter Powers.
As his lawyer, Roland Garcia of Greenberg Traurig, explained to jurors during opening statements, Powers was a transactional lawyer known for finding investors for large infrastructure projects.
“A lot of this was on a handshake,” Garcia said when discussing the business dealings between Powers and the Berrys. But even after Powers began receiving the $100,000-a-month payment and got to work finding an investor, Garcia said, he knew he needed to memorialize the agreement under which he and his entity, Allied Ports, were set to receive a 20 percent ownership interest in Lone Star Ports Holdings.
According to Powers’ lawsuit, which was filed in October 2024, the deal was inked in 2019, and stated his ownership stake would kick in “subject to priority distributions to the Berry defendants of $250 million plus a 10 percent preferred return on the outstanding balance of such amount.”
At that time, the project was valued at $400 million, but in court documents, Powers argues the still-unbuilt project could be worth as much as $1 billion.
On Oct. 22, 2024, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a permit greenlighting the project. The following day, Garcia said, Mike Hummell, the general counsel of Berry GP Inc., sent an email stating Axis Midstream Holdings, which holds the permitting rights, was jointly owned equally by Lawrence, his brother Marty and Bonnie Berry, the widow of their brother Dennis, who died in February 2024.
“After all this time, seven-and-a-half years … this is how he gets repaid. They want to cut him out,” Garcia said.
Garcia told jurors to pay close attention to the documents — business agreements and emails—they will see throughout trial, because they support his client’s version of events.
“Ladies and gentlemen, a deal is a deal, particularly when everyone is performing under the deal for seven-and-a-half years,” Garcia said. “It’s time to follow the agreements. It’s time to cease the wrongful conduct. Make them stop.”
Lawrence Berry is represented by Barrett Reasoner of Gibbs & Bruns, who told jurors during his opening statement that his client is in an “unusual position,” because even though he’s a defendant, he “agrees with a large part of what the plaintiffs say.”
“But not all of it,” he said.
The key detail Lawrence and Powers agree on, he said, is that there was an agreement between the Berry brothers and Powers, and he wants to honor that deal. Reasoner told jurors that for years the three brothers had operated the family company together “without a lot of corporate formality.”
Reasoner said his client agrees that Bonnie and Marty are trying to “freeze Ted Powers out.” For Lawrence, Reasoner said, the plan to freeze out Powers threatens the success of the project.
Reasoner also prepared the jury for another argument he said they’re likely to hear: that Lawrence “went rogue, and tried to take the project for himself in some fashion.” He said the documents will show that’s false.
Continuing the theme, Sarah Patel Pacheco of Jackson Walker, who represents Bonnie Berry, also encouraged the jury to closely examine the documents and evidence in the case, which she said will show that Lone Star Ports is a Berry Group Company, “not a Ted Powers company,” and that that representation was included in numerous emails and presentations given to potential investors.
Powers was hired for one reason, she said: get an investor on board to get the project across the goal line.
But, “his firepower has not landed anything,” she said, characterizing his efforts as “a miss that he wants to be compensated for now.”
“And that’s the rub,” she said.
Pacheco noted for the jury that Powers was compensated $1.8 million by the Berry family for his efforts, but that what he’s seeking through this lawsuit is “the commission without the deal.” The so-called “success fee” he is now seeking was contingent on bringing in an investor, she said.
She told jurors the evidence will show that investors at Carlyle Group and Energy Capital Partners, both interested in the deal, became “frustrated” with Powers as the deal terms kept changing.
“Ted Powers has had his chance and he didn’t get a deal,” she said. “He filed and he shouldn’t be rewarded here today.”
The fourth and final opening statement was given by Charlie Henke of Henke & Williams, who represents Marty Berry. He told jurors that at a certain point in the relationship between the Berrys and Powers, the brothers “cut off” his $100,000 monthly stipend, which sent Powers on a mission to “erode” the structure of the proposals to investors to be more beneficial to himself.
“We’re here today in a lawsuit over money that no one has earned, and that’s how the evidence is going to roll out,” he said.
The case number is 24-BC-11A-0025.