November 5, 2025
A federal court gave its final approval Tuesday to a $167.5 million settlement between EQT Corp. and its shareholders, closing out a class action that claimed the company overstated the operational benefits of its $6.7 billion merger with Rice Energy in 2017.
U.S. District Judge Robert Colville signed off on the deal, noting that there had been no objections and only 10 opt-outs after the settlement administrator notified 121,654 potential shareholder class members.
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The plaintiffs’ counsel called the settlement fund “the largest securities class action recovery ever in the history of the Western District of Pennsylvania and the 14th largest in the history of the Third Circuit.”
“We are pleased that this hard-fought litigation has reached settlement,” S. Douglas Bunch of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, co-lead counsel for the shareholders, said in a statement Wednesday. “It is a favorable result for investors as it provides an immediate cash recovery and resolves further litigation.”
The settlement covers individual and institutional shareholders who had purchased EQT stock between June 2017 and June 2019, held stock in EQT or Rice as of September 2017 and voted in either company’s November 2017 special shareholder meetings, and/or got shares of EQT stock in exchange for their Rice stock as part of the companies’ merger.
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The class is represented by Steven J. Toll, Daniel S. Sommers, S. Douglas Bunch, Christina D. Saler, Benjamin F. Jackson and Alexandra Gray of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, Salvatore J. Graziano, Adam H. Wierzbowski, Jesse L. Jensen and Robert Kravetz of Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann LLP, and Michael A. Comber of Comber Miller LLC.
Read EQT Gets Final OK For $168M Merger Benefits Settlement.