More fallout for Chesapeake Energy and SandRidge Energy in light of the federal investigation that led to indictments a few months ago in Oklahoma City. Now the two companies are accused in a $30 million lawsuit filed in Kansas City of conspiring to defraud another company which sold its oil and gas leasehold interests. It’s a lawsuit that’s similar to one filed a week after federal indictments accused Chesapeake Energy of bid-rigging on oil and gas leases in Oklahoma.
The lawsuit by 16 plaintiffs including Pacific Oil and Gas LLC and Chisholm Partners LLC was filed in Kansas City, Kansas accusing the two firms and former SandRidge CEO Tom Ward of illegally dividing up the Anadarko Basins Region in Kansas in 2011 and 2012 and agreeing not to compete against one another.
The suit in Kansas City, Kansas U.S. District Court, cv-02498 JAR-GEB, alleges a “conspiracy to depress the market for purchases of oil and natural gas leasehold interests.” Those who sued were members of Chisholm Partners, LLC “who sold their membership interests in Chisholm to Chesapeake Exploration, LLC effective December 1, 2011.”
The sale involved 1,800 acres for $900,000 in Harper and Sumner counties of Kansas; 5,500 acres in Sumner County for $2.75 million; and 21,320 acres in Kingman County for $10.66 million.
It’s a similar claim that was made against Chesapeake Energy in Michigan involving another company.
The federal investigation of Chesapeake led to the March indictment of Aubrey McClendon who was killed in a traffic crash the next day.
