Mr. Liedtke had postponed retirement plans to see the Texaco case to completion.
The report does, in a sense, talk a bit about the impact of the Texaco case on the company.
"The existence of these tapes transforms the Texaco case into something far more significant than most complaints of employment discrimination."
The Texaco case and its settlement also signal how much the landscape of employment discrimination has changed.
The Texaco case indicates that blacks are finally gaining enough white-collar jobs to make these types of glass-ceiling suits possible.
Some lawyers say that when it comes to the size of the award, the Texaco case might be a harbinger of things to come.
Local activists have played a key role in keeping the Texaco case alive.
Though it may not be politically correct on the right to say so, the Texaco case provides ample support for this point of view.
In the Texaco case, black employees received raises that brought them to salary equality with their white counterparts.
Exxon said yesterday that the position taken by the Supreme Court in the Texaco case was a "positive development."