Malone to Face Trial Over $5 Billion Time Warner Deal Financing

“Cable cowboy” John Malone and other Charter Communications Inc. directors lost their bid Monday to avoid a trial in Delaware over $5 billion in financing with Malone affiliate Liberty Broadband Corp. related to deals worth $89 billion for Time Warner Cable and another telecom company.

Vice Chancellor Sam Glasscock III denied summary judgment in a 78-page ruling for Delaware’s Chancery Court. He allowed a pension fund and another investor to move forward with claims that Charter’s board “coerced” shareholders into approving the financing transactions by making them a mandatory condition of the mergers.

The $79 billion acquisition of Time Warner ...