In this special episode of the firm's energy law podcast, KRCL Director Bruce Flowers is featured in the first installment of a six-part series with guest speakers on a variety of key and emerging legal issues impacting the oil-and-gas […]
On November 29, 2017, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced significant revisions to its Federal Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”) Enforcement Policy. (For more information about the FCPA generally, see my earlier blog post from August 10 […]
Last August, the United States joined Canada and Mexico to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement more than 20 years after its enactment. Despite the political rhetoric surrounding what President Trump has termed “the worst trade deal […]
There were fireworks yesterday at an open public meeting of the Texas Railroad Commission, the state regulatory body responsible for keeping tabs on the oil and gas industry. Following a variety of routine housekeeping matters, the agency's General Counsel […]
The guidance concedes that cooperation among federal, state and local agencies will be necessary in the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast and the United States’ Caribbean holdings, and the guidance further acknowledges that recovery is likely to “require […]
Force Majeure is a civil law concept (French for “superior force”), but in U.S. law it is largely a creature of contract. Force majeure comes into play when “acts of God” or other extraordinary events prevent contractual performance.[1] In the […]
This week, KRCL's energy law podcast addresses the fiduciary obligations of the executive rights holder to non-executive mineral interest owners, as well as an important appellate decision about acreage retention clauses keyed off of proration […]
In a recent installment of Law360's "Expert Analysis" series, KRCL trial lawyer Tom Ciarlone explained why—as the U.S. oil and gas industry recovers from Hurricane Harvey—operators must also be aware that force majeure clauses, excusing nonperformance […]
The Seventh Court of Appeals in Amarillo has rejected a jury verdict in favor of Hunt Cimarron, in a hard-fought controversy over a West Texas mineral lease. The intermediate appellate court determined that the lease had come to an end by operation of […]
The Texas courts have continued to evaluate the nature and extent of liability that property owners have for the acts of independent contractors. As indicated in a new opinion from the Eastland Court of Appeals, this is highly relevant for owners, […]
A jury verdict out of Oklahoma may be a harbinger of what's on the horizon for the many battles being waged in courthouses across the country between operators of horizontal wells and the vertical drillers who say their wells have been damaged&mdash […]
A member of KRCL's Energy Practice Group, trial lawyer Tom Ciarlone, was the subject of the first installment of Law360's new "Expert Analysis" series, What I Learned In My First Year, featuring attorneys' true-life tales from the earliest days of […]