A New Twist in Halliburton's Asbestos Tangle

There's big bucks in asbestos litigation, and late Wednesday the sharks were circling around Halliburton (HAL Quote), the Texas-based energy-services company facing a mountain of asbestos-liability cases.

The legal feeding frenzy over the Halliburton asbestos cases spilled over to Wall Street after the market closed Wednesday. That's when one of the lawyers in the case purportedly let it slip that Halliburton might pay up to $4.2 billion to settle asbestos cases. Some 200,000 claims are pending against the company.

A published report late Wednesday afternoon indicated the company had agreed to set up a trust to pay existing and future asbestos exposure claims. The report, attributed to plaintiffs' lawyers, said the settlement trust would be funded by as much as $2.8 billion in cash, with the balance in stock.

The company's stock jumped 5% after hours on the report of a tentative settlement, as investors saw an indication that the oil services company might be able to put its asbestos woes behind it. But as quickly as news of a possible settlement broke, the story began to unravel -- even though it appears the company and the plaintiffs' lawyers are getting close to a deal.

Twists and Turns

The lawyer who was cited as the source of the initial news report began to back away from his statement. Though Peter Kraus, one of a dozen plaintiffs' lawyers in the bankruptcy case of Halliburton's Harbison-Walker unit, said he believed a deal would get done, he said the parties hadn't reached an agreement yet.

"It is not a done deal," Kraus said via email to TheStreet.com. "Substantial structural issues remain unresolved."

Halliburton representatives didn't immediately return a call seeking comment.