I think you are still seeing that wrong.
Lawyers for plaintiffs at least seem not to be the good ole boy, posing, strolling, don't know when to shut up, bozos the lawyers for the defense appeared to be, or postured as being, as it seems from a cursory reading of the transcripts.
"Sorry"... LOL.
The certainty unit holders accept seems it is that JPM/PXD were always behind efforts to enable "someone" to pick up the properties for near nothing, conspiring in intending to benefit from that effort. Given they are apparently going for broke on the defense and not going for a fair price to settle, yeah, they (JPM, but perhaps not PXD... unless in for some other quid pro quo) are probably still angling to continue it to the end and have the scam succeed, given their necks are on the line for it anyway.
I think that element in potential introduces new risks for them... for JPM, broadly.
The plaintiffs efforts introduced risk (for JPM/PXD, and for other unit holders, it seems) in who the "someone" who would benefit from a fire sale would be, and in what the price at sale would be. Plaintiffs did enable an escape from defendants liabilities in a settlement structure that would prevent JPM/PXD from being able to uniquely benefit from their scam... by paying bottom dollar for the properties. That effort also enabled them to avoid penalties and gain "finality". In the end it seems, in spite of their posturing, they weren't willing to pay a fair price to get "finality"... even if the fair price was for properties and not the intangibles. The process they structured required an open market function that involved risks, but eliminated risk, too. They'd not be doing their jobs if they didn't make that effort. They did their jobs... and did them well from what I can see... and now there are other benefits apparent from having made the effort.
PXD seems it may have figured all, most, or at least some of that out... even if it seems they forgot to take the shovel away from their lawyer, and forgot to tell him to quit digging with it... much less swinging it around aimlessly. Perhaps their ponying up in contributions to the settlement, and opting out of the sale, when JPM did not, tells you what you need to know about who is the senior partner in managing the errors in their business cooperation ?
Or, maybe it was all for show.
Of course, we don't have a market result from a completed sale to show us who was intending to bid or intending to buy the properties, or what prices they were willing to pay... whether a 3rd party, or a related party from either side.
Another element to address by a vote of the unit holders ?
It seems JPM and PXD were unable to resist the temptation to conspire to kill the trust and steal the properties from unit holders while violating their fiduciary responsibilities. Their behavior in the process of negotiating the settlement and in court suggests nothing OTHER than that is what we see as still driving them.
That perhaps wouldn't have been an issue if the indenture prevented them from ever taking any "additional" future interest in or benefit from the trust properties that are in question ? The indenture prevents unit holders from taking any property interest from the trust, but doesn't prevent other insiders from doing that ? I do understand how oil exploration and production work... which doesn't mean that even what is "normal for the business" justifies what we see happening to trust properties under PXD's and JPM's control as fiduciary.
I think you don't often enter into contracts with people you expect to fail in their performance, unless you intend to benefit more from their failure than you will from their performance. I haven't read the indenture and don't know Texas trust law. I expect there may be changes you might consider to correct the contracts from utility in the situation that did exist when the trust was created, to that which does exist now.
Thirty years ago, you could trust your bank, and trust your bank really wanted you to succeed when they provided help. Then, the law isolated trust operations from trading house profits. Now, Glass-Steagle is gone, and you can't trust that your bank won't try to cheat you... that even made a common feature in their commercials now. And now, the law doesn't isolate trust from trading house profits. That means banks now give you "help" while intending the help they give to help you to fail, intending to profit from your failure.
That means banks/trading houses now operate assuming they are in the right when trying to enable and profit from client failures, and they similarly plan and intend to profit from enabling or "allowing" failures by acts of omission, even when that includes violating trust. That is just a fact... even if public perception has not yet fully caught up to the reality of what banks have become. We SEE that fact as a cause of the current economic mess... based on banks fraudulently issued mortgages being packaged as AAA securities. Where did that source of error that drove the global economic debacle we see originate ? Given all that is fact, contracts written when other facts prevailed, WILL need to be changed to reflect the new reality.
Background noise. Heard CNBC Fast Money talking head saying to short JPM on the way down...
Now, to gain a proper benefit in settlement, you either need to enable JPM to buy the properties while enabling them in pricing their risks and liabilities into them... to get a "fair" price... or you eliminate JPM from the market for the properties and thus limit or perhaps minimize their value in any sale by limiting their participation.
I still don't see any easy or short term path to having the trust being enabled to survive and prosper. That doesn't occur on any path I see without first winning the law suit, and perhaps not then. I expect a win in the law suit might result in damages that will dwarf other values, so, who cares if this trust survives then, if you can buy three others with the distribution following an award ? But, winning the lawsuit might alter the level of difficulty you have in finding another trustee and operator ?
I'm not a long term holder, here from Pickens' days. I haven't married this stock, and don't share the wider interest some have in "fixing" it to the way it was, rather than that in getting paid equitably for having ownership of the units I have now. My interest is frankly as much in handicapping the outcome in the legal process as much as it is in the actual source of underlying value in the assets. I see the assets DO have value that has been squashed by the effort applied in the management of them.
I'm clear eyed about the nature of the persistence the defense is likely to see as their best hope for avoiding penalties. Sticking to your fantastic story doesn't make it true. I don't see that expected level of persistence from defendants is likely to determine the outcome. I understand they have skin in the game I do not. I also see it as likely to be profitable to have them be skinned as they should be.
The problems still include the need for valuation, whether a sale occurs or not. You need a proper effort in valuation to enable a sale at a proper price. You need a proper valuation to enable establishing values at trial, whether the value that was wrongly removed, the value over time of having lost it, that potential which was destroyed, etc. You weren't damaged if they didn't take value from you. You were damaged to the extent of the value they took.
Just as the settlement process, even without being completed, enabled benefits for the plaintiffs... I expect the extreme aversion the defendants have to any "vote" of the unit holders... is not really tied to the cost of mailing the proxies.
I think there are legitimate issues in management that DO need to be addressed... obviously... and, one way unit holders have to make inputs is to vote on changes to the indenture, or vote on other things...
I expect there are pragmatic issues to vote on, where a vote might have real impact in directing management...
I also expect there are "other" issues to vote on, where a vote might have real impact in things other than management.
I guess unit holders could vote on things such as whether or not they think the trustee has violated their trust...
That could be useful, even necessary, in illuminating the need in preparing for voting for other changes... as it can provide necessary background explaining why other changes are needed... so that even if the trustee refuses to make changes... at least then they are put on record ?
One way to consider what you want to vote on, then, is to consider what you want to provide for them to be able to respond to, as the response will be one that puts them on record with whatever their response is.
Voting is just another way to engage in conversation with the trustee regarding your interest in how they are managing your trust... It is a RIGHT you have, IF you exercise it...
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