A lawsuit between rival liquefied natural gas companies Cheniere Energy and Tellurian has been dismissed just days before jury selection was set to begin.
State district court Judge Fredericka Phillips in Houston signed an order Thursday dismissing Cheniere’s claims against its former CEO Charif Souki and Souki’s new company Tellurian. The suit and a related $400 million claim were dismissed based on an “agreement of parties,” according to court records.
“Although this frivolous lawsuit was clearly an attempt to disrupt the hard work and success we are having at Tellurian, it never distracted us from our focus on building Tellurian’s global natural gas business, beginning with Driftwood LNG,” Souki said in a statement.
The lawsuit centered around $46 million in loans Souki made in 2015 while CEO of Cheniere to Parallax Enterprises of Houston. Cheniere and Parallax were seeking to form a joint venture to develop a pair of LNG export terminals in Louisiana. The deal fell apart and Cheniere’s board of directors fired Souki in December 2015.
Since the lawsuit was filed, Tellurian obtained a federal permit to build the Driftwood LNG export terminal in Lake Charles, La., and secured a liquefied natural gas supply deal with the LNG import arm of Indian oil and natural gas company Petronet.
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