Hangley Aronchick shareholder John Summers successfully defended a lawsuit seeking $5 billion in damages against large oil and gas companies in the Middle District of Pennsylvania.
U.S. District Judge Karoline Mehalchick recently dismissed the nine-year-old suit, which accused the companies of underpaying royalties to nearly 90 property owners with interests in thousands of acres of leased land. The Aug. 30 decision found that the leaseholders either lacked standing to bring their antitrust claims under the Sherman Act or failed to show that the defendants had somehow conspired to defraud them.
“The amended complaint alleges independent and varied conduct by each defendant; there are no factual allegations supporting global, coordinated, and unified activity among all the defendants beyond plaintiffs’ conclusory allegation that such activity occurred,” Judge Mehalchick wrote in her opinion, dismissing the case without prejudice.
The defendants first moved to dismiss the case in 2015. A different judge previously assigned to the case referred the dispute to mediation in 2017, and the proceedings were further delayed by bankruptcy proceedings involving defendant Chesapeake Energy Corp. in 2020.
The dismissal was covered by Law360 and Reuters. Read coverage of the case here and here.
