An investor in billionaire William Koch’s Oxbow Carbon LLC, West Palm Beach, Fla., is demanding files that it said will show “wasteful spending’’ on lawyers hired to represent the company in the fight over the forced sale of the energy-products firm, according to a Bloomberg report. Crestview Partners LLC accuses Koch of falsely hiring the law firm of Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky, and Popeo PC to represent Oxbow in the sale dispute, when the firm actually served as his personal lawyers.
Crestview’s Robert Hurst and Barry Volpert, who serve as Oxbow directors, said in a Delaware Chancery lawsuit that Koch paid the firm as much as $50 million to help unsuccessfully stymie an investment fund’s demand for an exit sale under an agreement with the company.
Last month, Delaware Chancery Court Judge Travis Laster, in a longstanding lawsuit (GM Aug. 10, p. 1; Feb. 16, p. 24), ordered Koch to sell Oxbow Carbon so that Crestview, along with Load Line Capital LLC, can recoup their $150 million investment and also receive damages for Koch’s failure to put the company on the auction block. Koch is the brother of David and Charles Koch of Koch Industries Inc.
While Judge Laster said he would appoint a monitor to oversee the sale, the case is expected to be appealed.
Over the years, Oxbow has been involved in several commodities, including fertilizer, sulfur, sulfuric acid, petroleum coke, coal, carbon, and gypsum. It bought the fertilizer and sulfur trading business of International Commodities Export Corp. (ICEC) in 2011 (GM Feb. 7, 2011; Nov. 29, 2010). However, it sold its Oxbow Fertilizer LLC unit to Oakley Fertilizer Inc., North Little Rock, Ark., in late 2017 (GM Nov. 3, 2017).