Chesapeake Energy has agreed to end a four-year federal class-action battle over natural gas royalties with Pennsylvania leaseholders for $7.75 million, but left the door open to walking away from the settlement if the state’s attorney general does not drop an unfair-trade action in state court. Receive daily email alerts, subscriber notes & personalize your experience. Register Now Chesapeake said it would set up a fund to pay an estimated 10,000 leaseholders to make up for deductions from their royalty checks for post-production processing and pipeline costs, deductions that in some months left the leaseholders with negative balances, according to the settlement filed in federal court last Thursday. The fund, which would pay class action lawyers up to one-third of the settlement amount, would recoup an estimated 8% of post-production payments for the leaseholders […]