Settlement Plan

Hoping to prod warring Texaco and Pennzoil back to the bargaining table and expedite Texaco's emergence from bankruptcy proceedings, a committee of Texaco creditors said Thursday that it will propose a settlement price tag of less than $4.1 billion within the next 10 days. Speaking for Texaco's non-oil creditors during a 5 1/2-hour court hearing called to decide how much longer Texaco should have to prepare a reorganization plan, committee chairman Jeffrey J. Hodgman called the $4.

Charles W. Knapp, former head of Financial Corp. of America, will get to keep his controversial $2-million severance payment under a proposed settlement to end litigation against the now-bankrupt savings and loan holding company. Knapp received the severance pay after federal thrift regulators ousted him as FCA chairman and chief executive in 1984 in the midst of a deposit run. He received the payment from FCA's board in return for his agreement to resign, but FCA later sued to recover the money on the grounds that it was grossly excessive.

Seventy-eight families living near Fullerton's McColl hazardous waste site would receive $400,000 from Chevron Corp. and a subsidiary in the first proposed settlement of lawsuits filed by residents over the toxic dump, a lawyer for the plaintiffs said Tuesday night.

The City Council met in special session Friday to consider switching pool settlement plans and dropping its bankruptcy-related legal action, but officials postponed a final vote until Monday. Switching settlement plans would be a significant turnabout for the city, which has already spent $250,000 in an effort to sue the county and would owe an additional $500,000 in legal fees for class-action litigation against Merrill Lynch if the suit is dropped.

Mitsubishi Motor Manufacturing of America Inc., which is facing federal allegations of pervasive sexual harassment and race and sex discrimination at its auto plant near Normal, Ill., has told government officials it is replacing its current legal team and does not plan to enter settlement talks any time soon. Meanwhile, around the country, groups of protesters from the National Organization for Women and the Rev.

A judge has balked at signing off on a $33-million proposed settlement between the Securities and Exchange Commission and Bank of America Corp. over bonuses. The Charlotte, N.C., bank agreed this week to pay the penalty to settle government charges that it misled investors about Merrill Lynch's plans to pay bonuses to its executives. But the settlement is subject to court approval, and Judge Jed S. Rakoff declined his consent pending results of a hearing Monday.

The United States Football League's $1.3-billion antitrust suit against the National Football League is scheduled to go to trial in three months. Are the litigants looking forward to this costly fight? Both sides say they are. Do they mean it? That doesn't seem likely. Nobody ever knows what any court will decide. Nobody needs a fight in which the only sure winners are the lawyers. Is there a way out of this? Yes, there is. The leagues could reach a pretrial settlement.

Palestinians reacted with dismay Monday to Israel's announcement that it would build 3,500 more housing units in and near the West Bank's largest Jewish settlement in apparent contravention of a U.S.-backed peace blueprint. Meanwhile, after several days of delay and argument, Israel late Monday formally handed over the West Bank town of Tulkarm to Palestinian security control.

Investors' lawyers from across the country assailed a proposed class-action settlement Tuesday that would pay a few cents on the dollar to more than 100,000 investors who lost hundreds of millions of dollars in Prudential Securities limited partnerships. U.S. District Judge Marcel Livaudais Jr. began a two-day hearing into the fairness of the settlement, which covers investors in Prudential's Energy Income Funds series of oil and gas limited partnerships.