June 26, 2025
EQT Corp. has agreed to pay $167.5 million to investors who claimed the company overstated the benefits of its $6.7 billion merger with Rice Energy, according to a motion filed Thursday seeking preliminary approval of what the investors called the largest-ever stockholder suit deal lodged in Western Pennsylvania federal court.
Led by the Government of Guam Retirement Fund, Northeast Carpenters Annuity Fund and the Northeast Carpenters Pension Fund, the proposed class said it had reached the settlement after six years of litigation and three mediation sessions, with the last session in May producing the tentative deal to end their claims that EQT stock was inflated by false claims about synergies between the holdings of the two companies in the Marcellus Shale oil and gas formation.
“The $167.5 million recovery is particularly significant given, among other things, defendants’ arguments regarding loss causation and their assertion that plaintiffs’ damages at most constituted only a fraction of this amount,” said the brief in support of the deal.
“Moreover, the recovery — $167.5 million in cash — is notable as it is (by far) the largest securities class action recovery ever in the history of this district and the 14th largest in the history of the Third Circuit,” the brief said.
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The proposed class is represented by Steven J. Toll, Daniel S. Sommers, S. Douglas Bunch, Christina D. Saler and Benjamin F. Jackson 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 Investors Ink $167.5M Deal in Rice Energy Merger Suit.