Delaware Judge to ETE in $410M Merger Breakup Case w/ Williams: ‘Pay the Piper’

A Delaware chancery judge Wednesday ordered Dallas-based Energy Transfer to pay Tulsa-based The Williams Companies a $410 million breakup fee for the megamerger between the two companies that Energy Transfer called off in 2016 after market conditions in the energy industry became abysmal. 

The decision, by Vice Chancellor Sam Glascock III, followed a six-day trial between the parties in May, the second in a two-part series. The first trial, in the summer of 2016, resulted in Glasscock approving the breakup because Energy Transfer’s tax lawyers at Latham & Watkins were unable to deliver an opinion that was a condition precedent to the deal closing.