outstanding stock. About 12% of the stock was controlled by the Getty Museum.
Chariman Mao Liedtke gathered his team to attempt to seize control of Getty Oil: James
Glanville of Lazard Freres was his investment banker, Arthur Liman of Paul, Weiss,
Rifkind, Wharton, & Garrison was his chief negotiator. Liedtke also had the services of
the megafirm Baker & Botts of Houston.
In early 1984, Gordon Getty and his Sarah Getty Trust and the Getty Museum
represented by the New York mergers and acquisitions lawyer Marty Lipton combined to
oblige the board of Getty Oil to give preliminary acceptance to a tender offer for Getty
Oil stock (a la Gammell once again) at a price of about $112.50 per share. Arthur Liman
thought he had a deal that would enable Chariman Mao to seize control of Getty Oil and
its billion barrel reserves, but no contract or any other document was ever signed, and key
provisions of the transaction remained to be negotiated.
When the news of these negotiations began to leak out, major oil compnaies who also
wanted Getty and its reserves began to move in: Chevron showed signs of making a
move, but it was Texaco, represented by Bruce Wasserstein of First Boston and the
notorious Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom law firm, that got the attention of the
Getty Museum and Gordon Getty with a bid (of $125) that was sweeter than the tight-
fisted Chairman Mao Liedkte had been willing to put forward. Gordon Getty and the
Getty Museum accordingly signed a contract with Texaco. This was the largest
acquisition in human history up to that time, and the check received by Gordon Getty was
for $4,071,051,264, the second largest check ever written in the history of the United
States, second only to one that had been used to roll over a part of the postwar national
debt.
Chairman Mao Liedkte thought he had been cheated. "They've made off with a million
dollars of my oil!", he bellowed. "We're going to sue everybody in sight!"
But Chairman Mao Liedtke's attempts to stop the deal in court were fruitless; he then
concentrated his attention on a civil suit for damages on a claim that Texaco had been
guilty of "tortious interference" with Pennzoil's alleged oral contract with Getty Oil. The
charge was that Texaco had known that there already had been a contract, and had set out
deliberately to breach it. After extensive forum shopping, Chairman Mao concluded that
Houston, Texas was the right venue for a suit of this type.
Liedtke and Pennzoil demanded $7 billion in actual damages and $7 billion in punitive
damages for a total of at least $14 billion, a sum bigger than the entire public debt of the
United States on December 7, 1941. Liedke hired Houston lawyer Joe "King of Torts"
Jamail, and backed up Jamail with Baker & Botts.
Interestingly, the judge who presided over the trial until the final phase, when the die had
already been cast, was none other than Anthony J.P. "Tough Tony" Farris, whom we
have met two decades earlier as a Bushman of the old guard. Back in February, 1963, we
recall, the newly elected Republican County Chairman for Harris County, George H.W.
Bush, had named Tough Tony Farris as his first assistant county chairman. [fn 2] This