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BP shareholder derivative suit dismissed Case was brought in Alaska Superior Court following Deepwater Horizon disaster; England ruled the proper forum for such actions Wesley Loy For Petroleum News
A judge has dismissed a lawsuit BP shareholders filed in an Alaska court following the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
The case was what’s known as a derivative action, in which shareholders bring suit on behalf of a company against its leadership.
It began May 20, 2010, when lawyers for shareholder Jeffrey Pickett of Anchorage sued in Alaska Superior Court, naming BP board members as defendants, as well as former BP chief executive Tony Hayward and John Minge, president of BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc.
Other shareholders filed two more suits, and these were consolidated with the Pickett case.
The shareholders alleged breach of fiduciary duties, negligence and gross mismanagement in connection with not only Deepwater Horizon, but with pipeline leaks and other problems in BP’s North Slope operations, and the deadly explosion at BP’s Texas City refinery in 2005.
On June 4, Superior Court Judge pro tem Brian K. Clark dismissed the case.
Texas ruling In his two-page order, Clark cited the Sept. 15, 2011, dismissal of a similar derivative action in federal court in Texas.
U.S. District Judge Keith P. Ellison of Houston ruled that England, where BP is headquartered, was “the far more appropriate forum” for the case.
At an April 25 hearing in Clark’s courtroom in Anchorage, lawyers representing the BP board members and executives argued the Alaska suit should be dismissed in light of the Texas ruling.
But an attorney for the BP shareholders urged Clark to allow the Alaska case to proceed. He cited environmental and safety problems in BP-operated Alaska oil fields, and noted Pickett’s longstanding efforts to encourage good corporate practices within the company.
Case dismissed Previously, another Superior Court judge, Sharon Gleason, presided over the Alaska shareholder derivative case prior to her move to the federal bench.
Gleason had stayed the case on Aug. 15, 2011, pending resolution of the Texas derivative litigation.
Lawyers for the BP board had complained that litigating basically the same case in both Alaska and Texas would be a “huge waste” of time and money.
Gleason said she saw no indication the Texas federal court would fail to address “the alleged shortcomings of BP’s officers and directors in Alaska.”
Clark, in his June 4 order, noted that Gleason had ruled the parties in the Alaska case would be “bound by the decisions and judgments” in the Texas case.
And so, Clark dismissed the Alaska case.
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