An Oklahoma City federal judge has ruled in favor of Continental Resources in a lawsuit in which it accused a North Dakota oilfield firm over fraudulently overbilling the Oklahoma company more than $2 million.
The lawsuit was filed against Wolla Oilfield Services and its owner Jason Wolla in March of 2020. U.S. District Judge Patrick R. Wyrick recently denied the motions of Wolla Oilfield to have the suit dismissed.
Continental contended in its lawsuit, CV-00200-PRW that Wolla had directed his employees to produce fake invoices for its hot oil service work and bill Continental for work that was never done.
The lawsuit was filed after a whistleblower in Wolla’s accounting department contacted Continental to “report systematic overbilling in connection” with the work contract.
“Wolla’s upper management, the whistleblower explained, was training and incentivizing its hot oil truck drivers to secretly overbill customers, including Continental,” stated the judge’s decision.
Through an audit, Continental corroborated the whistleblower’s account and discovered Wolla had overbilled at least $2,400,000 through the practice of “ghost billing” or billing for time when no worker was present at any point in the day.
Attorneys for Continental claimed that from January 2017 to the start of December 2019, Wolla billed Continental for a total of approximately $7,700,000.
The judge refused to dismiss the lawsuit.