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Energy
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June 18, 2013
Texas Appeals Court Revives Suit Over Gas Delivery Deal
A Texas appeals court on Tuesday revived an energy developer’s suit against Kachina Pipeline Co. Inc., ruling that the pipeline operator improperly tried to extend a contract to supply natural gas while withholding unauthorized marketing costs.
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June 18, 2013
Judge Nixes Bid To Halt $400M Kinder Morgan Pipeline
A federal judge on Monday rejected a Native American tribe's bid to halt Kinder Morgan Inc.'s construction of a portion of the $400 million natural gas pipeline expansion in Pennsylvania and New Jersey over alleged desecration of sacred land, calling the tribe's injunction request speculative and legally deficient.
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June 18, 2013
K-Sea Escapes Investor Suit Over Obsolete Oil Tankers
A New Jersey federal judge on Friday tossed a putative class action alleging oil barge operator K-Sea Transportation Partners LP misled investors in 2009 about the company’s earnings and neglected to reveal that its obsolete fleet of single-hull tankers would be phased out.
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June 18, 2013
Pa. Justices Clarify Reimbursement Rule For Fuel-Tank Fees
Indemnification fees paid into a state fund used to compensate property owners for the removal of underground fuel storage tanks must be current for the entire site before a reimbursement claim can be processed, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled on Monday.
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June 17, 2013
BLM's Gas Lease Sales Didn't Flout Enviro Law, Judge Says
Three environmental groups on Friday lost a bid to block the U.S. Bureau of Land Management from selling oil and gas leases in Montana that allegedly have been sold without consideration of their impact on global warming after a Montana federal judge ruled the groups lacked standing.
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June 14, 2013
DC Circ. Axes NRG Challenge To FERC Power Settlement
The D.C. Circuit squashed NRG Power Marketing LLC's challenge against the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's approval of a transmission service settlement NRG claims gives Consolidated Edison Co. of New York Inc. rights that competitors don't have, saying Friday that FERC's decision was supported by substantial evidence.
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June 13, 2013
Texas High Court Stays Gas Theft Suit To Weigh Arbitration
Texas' highest court on Thursday suspended litigation against a leaseholder accused of stealing natural gas from DCP Midstream LP in order to resell it to the company, while the court considers whether the dispute is subject to an alleged co-conspirator’s arbitration agreement with DCP.
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June 12, 2013
Judge OKs $96.4M Chevron Award In Ecuador Oil Dispute
A federal judge has approved an international tribunal's $96.4 million arbitration award to Chevron Corp. in a dispute alleging the Republic of Ecuador misappropriated crude oil from Chevron, denying the country's claim that the U.S. court lacked jurisdiction.
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June 12, 2013
7th Circ. Ruling Fortifies FERC’s Transmission Rule
In blessing Federal Energy Regulatory Commission orders allowing a regional transmission organization to charge members to finance new power lines to remote wind farms, experts say the Seventh Circuit last week effectively endorsed the agency's efforts to spread out the costs of expanding the nation's electricity grid and handed it some new ammunition to protect a controversial utility transmission planning rule.
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June 12, 2013
Atlantic Richfield To Pay $21M To Settle Superfund Suit
Atlantic Richfield Co. last week agreed to pay $21 million to resolve the federal government’s efforts to recoup cleanup costs for a Superfund site in Montana.
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June 12, 2013
Fla. Appeals Court Revives Tribe's Power Plant Rezoning Suit
A Florida appeals court on Wednesday revived the Seminole Tribe of Florida's suit against Hendry County challenging rezoning of an area abutting the tribe's reservation to allow for the construction of an electric power plant by Florida Power & Light Co.
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June 12, 2013
Landowners' Keystone XL Law Challenge Survives Neb. Attack
A Nebraska state judge on Tuesday rejected the state’s second attempt to sink a suit challenging a law that gives the governor power to approve a new route for the Keystone XL pipeline, saying the case isn’t moot just because a route has been planned.
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June 12, 2013
Shipper Can't Escape $25M Oil Spill Cleanup Costs
A Louisiana federal judge on Tuesday shot down American Commercial Lines LLC’s effort to escape liability for $24.8 million in cleanup costs from a 2008 Mississippi River oil spill by voiding its contract with a marine company.
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June 11, 2013
NJ Proposes $130M Settlement In Passaic Pollution Suit
The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection announced Tuesday a $130 million settlement to resolve claims partially with eight defendants out of the hundreds of corporations and municipalities accused of polluting the Passaic River with hazardous chemicals and waste products.
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June 11, 2013
Diamond Offshore Pulled Back Into Asbestos Liability Fight
A Texas appeals court ruled Tuesday that a drilling rig asset and stock purchase agreement between the predecessors of Diamond Offshore Co. and a NuStar Energy LP subsidiary is too ambiguous to relieve Diamond's potential liability for asbestos suits tied to the rigs.
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June 11, 2013
4th Circ. Revives Negligence Suit Over W.Va. Miners' Deaths
The Fourth Circuit on Tuesday revived a suit brought by the widows of two miners killed in a 2006 fire at a Massey Energy Co. subsidiary’s mine, following a ruling by West Virginia's top court that government inspectors can be held accountable for negligence that results in wrongful death.
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June 10, 2013
Justices May Shift US Courts' Role In Global Arbitration
By agreeing Monday to take on BG Group PLC and Argentina's dispute over a $181 billion arbitration award, experts say, the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to determine how much power U.S. courts can wield over international arbitration proceedings linked to bilateral investment treaties and could give firms second thoughts about having those disputes handled by U.S.-based arbitration panels.
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June 10, 2013
Class Action Attys React To High Court's Arbitration Ruling
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that courts can't second-guess an arbitrator's interpretation of a contract, backing an arbitrator's ruling that a doctor's pursuit of class arbitration against insurer Oxford Health Plans LLC was permitted under the language of a reimbursement agreement. Here, attorneys tell Law360 why the unanimous ruling is significant.
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June 10, 2013
Appeals Court Won't Force Arbitration In Pipeline Theft Suit
A Texas appeals court on Thursday refused to compel arbitration in a suit alleging a natural gas supplier double-billed pipeline owner DCP Midstream LP, saying an arbitration clause between DCP and the mineral rights owner named in the sales dispute doesn’t extend to other parties.
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June 10, 2013
DOL Tip-Pooling Loss May Spur More Agency Rule Challenges
The U.S. Department of Labor suffered a loss Friday when an Oregon federal court ruled the agency had exceeded its authority by issuing regulations on worker tip pooling at restaurants, a decision lawyers say adds to a growing body of recent rulings that encourage legal challenges seeking to curb federal agencies' power.
Expert Analysis
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Whyte V. Barclays Follows The 546 Safe Harbor Trend
In Whyte v. Barclays Bank PLC, the Southern District of New York recently dismissed the complaint of the trustee for the SemGroup estate seeking to avoid a novation made to Barclays pre-bankruptcy under a swap agreement. This is one of a number of cases in recent years that treats the safe harbors — particularly the section 546 safe harbors — as broadly protective of nondebtor transferees in financial transactions, say Jonathan Guy and Douglas Mintz of Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP.
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Challenges Still Ahead After Ill.'s New Fracking Bill
In light of the long-awaited hydraulic fracturing legislation now signed by Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn, supporters of high-volume horizontal fracking who see the potential for enormous economic benefits are looking eagerly ahead to when permitted drilling operations can begin in the New Albany Shale reserve. But, even with enactment of the fracking legislation into law, significant challenges still lie ahead, say attorneys with Quarles & Brady LLP.
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UK Joint Ventures: Sanctions And Corruption Risks
What should be at the forefront of the mind of any in-house counsel or compliance officer whose company operates in joint ventures is section 7 of the U.K. Bribery Act, which holds that an organization does not even need to be aware of corrupt conduct in order to be guilty of an offense, say attorneys with Dechert LLP.
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A Template For Designing Mass Tort Settlement Structures
The work of the Gulf Coast Claims Facility in response to the Deep Water Horizon explosion and oil spill provides a modern paradigm for organizing and delivering financial relief to economic victims of extraordinary environmental disasters. Several aspects of the GCCF case, such as the application of payment algorithms, can be applied as a framework for other mass torts, say Thomas Vasquez and Ilan Guedji of Analysis Research Planning Corporation.
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Digging Into SEC Mineral Disclosure Policies
Recent U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rules require resource extraction issuers to disclose annually certain information on payments they make to the U.S. government and foreign governments for the purpose of the commercial development of oil, natural gas or minerals. But while these rules were accompanied by extensive adopting releases, ambiguities remain, resulting in a substantial number of compliance questions, say attorneys with Mayer Brown LLP.
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Extra Layer Of Rules On Fracking On Federal, Tribal Lands
The latest U.S. Bureau of Land Management push for rules on hydraulic fracturing on federal and tribal lands would add another layer of regulation to oil and gas operators, with important changes on requirements such as cementing, construction chemical reporting, say attorneys with Latham & Watkins LLP.
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Is TAR Right For Your Discovery Project?
There are several critical decision factors to weigh to assess whether Technology Assisted Review is right for a discovery project — for example, the nature of the case, internal capabilities, production considerations and overall comfort with this technology, say Michele Lange and Joseph White of Kroll Ontrack Inc.
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Top DOI Issues To Watch This Month
June brings dramatic changes at the top of the U.S. Department of the Interior. New hands will control the levers of power, and, as a result, the organization that controls one-fifth of the land area of the United States, 35,000 miles of coastline and 1.75 billion acres of offshore resources will alter how it operates, making one wonder what will happen next, says Steven Richardson of Wiley Rein LLP.
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Class Arbitration Is Back In Arbitrators’ Hands
Arbitrators can still interpret contracts pretty much any way they want, according to the U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling in Oxford Health Plans LLC v. Sutter. The holding should come as no great surprise as it reflects decades of federal arbitration law, yet the unanimous ruling is a surprise, given what preceded it, says Christopher King of Homer Bonner Jacobs.
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The Other Pivot: Russian Energy Policy Toward China
In 2010, when the Obama administration announced a new policy of engagement in the western Pacific, known as the “Pivot,” it was clear that China’s quest for secure supply lines for resources, in particular energy, was a key factor. Energy is likewise the driver in another less noticed but quite important pivot that is now fully underway: a shift in Russian energy policy toward China, says Shane DeBeer of Dechert LLP.