LONG BEACH : Court Backs Exxon in Price-Fixing Suit

A jury verdict that cleared Exxon Corp. of fixing the prices it paid for state-owned tidelands oil in the 1970s has been upheld by a federal appeals court.

Six other major oil companies had settled claims of $262 million by the city of Long Beach and the state. But Exxon went to trial in federal court in Los Angeles and won a jury verdict in 1992. The verdict was upheld Tuesday by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

In a 3-0 ruling, the appeals court said that instructions given during the trial by U.S. District Judge A. Wallace Tashima did not mislead the jury about the state’s duty to prove a price-fixing conspiracy. Long Beach’s appeal claimed that Tashima erred in permitting certain jury instructions and in disallowing some of the city’s evidence.

The lawsuit, filed in 1975, alleged that the oil companies conspired in the early 1960s to keep prices paid for state-owned tidelands oil artificially low. The state claimed that firms assigned higher values to the same oil when trading among themselves.

Exxon “didn’t believe then, and we don’t believe now, they did anything wrong,” said attorney David Destino, who helped defend the oil company.

Deputy City Atty. James McCabe declined to comment on Tuesday’s ruling.