re:"Afterall, our trust was spared of the $20 million+ E&D expense obligation, which would have bankrupted our trust"
I hope that I won't regret voicing my concerns a little more directly. $20m / 70m units = -.28 per unit.
Could unitholders have been "charged" for this?
On initial examination the section I mentioned says that we are not a "limited partnership". Apparently most royalty trusts nowadays are formally written to structure liability like owning stock in a corporation. If the company goes negative, all you can lose is your initial investment. Now, this trust was made in the early days of trusts, and some of the later "refinements" aren't in there.
So, I'm thinking that there could be state or federal statutes that could still offer some protection for unitholders beyond what would normally be written into a trust's charter nowadays. But I don't know this.
On the other hand, it would be pretty tough to try to send a bill to an anonymous stack of certificates in some closet somewhere. If known unitholders were going to be exposed in this way, it seems like that would effect the issue of Standing. Maybe that was what was holding them back. Obviously they wouldn't have wanted to do anything to bolster unitholders case for Standing. I don't know.
So you may see that what bothers me is the question: Is this like an option or more like a future?
AI
