AZ, the deliberate 'timing' was very obvious. It seems like they already knew EC will not appeal from the start because they must have spent the last 3 weeks preparing for the final LTI payout to PIERS because they had that ready to go out first thing on Monday morning right after the appeal period expired on Friday night...why not announce something like "since the appeal just expired, we are preparing LTI payment to go out in a week.."
So I think the fact that the LTI payment went out first thing Monday morning means they must have been preparing it during the 3 weeks of appeal stay...as if they were 100% sure that there would be no appeal...like it was planned...and, they seem to be in a rush to get this done with the immediate PIERS payoff after.
So, I'm really hopeful that we might hear significant announcement before March 7th - before Coop Earnings.