John Malone and his former colleagues on Charter Communications Inc.’s board agreed to a $87.5 million settlement of claims the billionaire unfairly benefited from the $79 billion purchase of Time Warner Cable he helped finance, according to Bloomberg.
The accord disclosed Friday in a Delaware court filing resolves an investor’s lawsuit against directors of the second-largest US cable company over their handling of the 2016 deal. The money will come from insurance covering directors named in the suit and will go into Charter’s coffers, not to the shareholder who filed the case.
Investor Matthew Sciabacucci accused the directors of allowing Malone, then on the board, to reap unfair tax benefits from stock he got in the merger through a side deal. Malone has been called the “cable cowboy” because of his extensive holdings in the industry.
Charter agreed to settle Sciabacucci’s claims “to avoid the burden, expense, disruption, and distraction of further litigation,” according to court filings. The directors said they aren’t admitting any wrongdoing as part of the deal.
The case had been set for trial last month before Delaware Chancery Court Judge Sam Glasscock III, but it was canceled.
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