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Enron Mail |
Sounds good
Britt Davis@ENRON 05/23/2000 06:03 PM To: Richard B Sanders/HOU/ECT@ECT, Linda R Guinn/HOU/ECT@ECT, Michael Moran/ET&S/Enron@ENRON, Staci Holtzman/FGT/Enron@ENRON, Eric Benson/ET&S/Enron@ENRON cc: Becky Zikes/Corp/Enron@ENRON, Becky Stephens/Corp/Enron@ENRON Subject: Grynberg/Quinque Charlie Tetrault called me today to make sure we were aware of one more billing issue arising out of the above-referenced cases. A little chronology may help. Until around October or November of last year, V&E's bills solely referenced the Grynberg II case. Afterwards, due to Northern having removed the case, V&E's bills included a seperate category for Quinque time. Starting in January of 2000, however, V&E's bills (the first one being for December time) introduced a third category for "Joint Defense Work" time. This third classification represented work done by V&E on the proposed Quinque motion to dismiss for lack of standing, etc.(but not for lack of personal jurisdiction, which briefing is being done by Fulbright). Basically, V&E, Skadden and one other firm are putting together the draft motion to dismiss for lack of standing, etc. Substantially all that work has already been done, according to Charlie. The expectation was that, e.g., Enron would pay V&E's fees up front, Sonat would pay Skadden's bills up front, etc., then all those who "fronted" such fees would recover those payments from other members of the joint defense committee, who would be billed pro rata. What Charlie called me to say is that if we have EOG pay 50% of the Joint Defense Work time category, then the Holland & Hart trustee who eventually makes reimbursement will have to deal with an additional level of complexity in determining how the reimbursements will be made. Charlie really left it up to us as to what we want to do; we just need to make sure that everyone (including, I guess, Holland & Hart) understands that EOG will be one of the ones "fronting" the money to V&E and entitled to receive reimbursement. One the other hand, I got the impression that Charlie would appreciate it if Enron paid 100% of the Joint Defense Billing (and accordingly got 100% of any reimbursement), so that the reimbursement issue was not so complicated Frankly, I would not be surprised if Barry starts reconsidering the 50/50 split after he sees these most recent bills, given that the Jont Defense Billing is exclusively for Quinque work. My thought is not to change how we pay the 50/50 split on the bills we have already received, but advise V&E that for future bills, they can bill Enron 100% of the Joint Defense Billing category. Please let me know how you all feel about this. B.K.D.
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