The United States Department of the Interior published the final well control rule on Aug. 22 from the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE). The rule clarifies blowout preventer (BOP) system regulations and...more
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California has ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) “delayed unreasonably” by waiting at least six years to finalize draft regulations updating its 1994...more
On April 19, 2021, eleven years since the Deepwater Horizon explosion, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report issued to Congress criticizing the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Safety and...more
JANUARY 2020 - FEDERAL APPELLATE COURTS - U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit - El Paso County, Texas, et al. v. Donald J. Trump, et al. On January 8, 2020, a divided panel of the court quickly granted a...more
The UK Supreme Court has released its much-anticipated decision in the Deepwater Horizon case between Halliburton v Chubb. The appeal concerns the arbitrator’s duty of impartiality, the duty to give disclosure of other...more
Recently, a Mississippi federal judge provided a heartening reminder that, while it may seem all too often ignored, fraud in the mass tort context can carry serious—indeed, criminal—consequences. As we discuss below, victims...more
January has been a busy month for the Fifth Circuit, which has issued a number of significant rulings....more
Under Louisiana law, does the operator’s bad faith preclude recovery for the non-operator’s breach of a joint operating agreement if the operator caused the non-operator to breach the JOA but did not itself breach?...more
In 2014, we wrote about efforts by the U.S. Department of Interior’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) to require less traditional parties to fund the decommissioning of idle oil and gas wells and related...more
Texas Supreme Court Finds Anadarko is Entitled to Over $100 Million in Deepwater Horizon Defense Costs Based on Undefined Term in Insurance Policy - Insurance coverage litigation arising out of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon...more
The Supreme Court of Texas delivered good news to policyholders insured under a “Joint Venture Provision” endorsement commonly used in the oil and gas industry. In Anadarko Petroleum Corp. v. Houston Casualty Co.—a case...more
Insurance coverage litigation arising out of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion continues to result in important precedents that will impact energy companies and policyholders with operations in Texas. On January 25, the...more
It has been almost 10 years since an explosion onboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig rocked the offshore energy industry. In that time, most of the major (and minor) players involved in the disaster have been forced to...more
On January 25, 2019, the Texas Supreme Court ruled that a provision in an insurance policy did not limit coverage for Anadarko’s defense expenses related to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill where the provision only capped...more
On January 25, the Texas Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling in the case of Anadarko Petroleum Corp. and Anadarko E&P Co. v. Houston Cas. Co., et al., characterized as an “interlocutory permissive appeal,” reversing the...more
The Department of Interior’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement is soliciting comments on whether and under what circumstances it should allow decommissioning-in-place of pipeline-related infrastructure in...more
In a recent important decision for arbitrations seated in England, the English Court of Appeal has, for the first time, considered the scope of arbitrators’ duty of disclosure. The court in Halliburton v. Chubb found that the...more
The underlying case concerned the 2010 explosion and fire on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, when a well which was in the process of being plugged and temporarily abandoned, experienced a blow out....more
Arbitrators should disclose subsequent appointments to related arbitration proceedings, particularly if cases materially overlap. In the Halliburton v Chubb ruling, the Court of Appeal held that an arbitrator who did not...more
The massive public attention focused on the Jones Act in Puerto Rico immediately after Hurricane Maria was eerily analogous to the public spotlight on the law during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill (the “Gulf Spill”) in the...more
This past year, the Insurance Company Team recently welcomed six new team members from The Woodlands, Texas office of Steptoe & Johnson PLLC. The combined experience of the new members brings decades of Texas focused...more
On December 18, 2017, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit dismissed the U.S. government’s appeal regarding a Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (“BSEE”) Notification of Incident of Noncompliance...more
On Wednesday, September 27, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued an important decision in United States vs. Moss, No. 16-30561 that limits the authority of the federal government to bring enforcement actions...more
Since October 2011, when the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) issued its first-ever Incidents of Non-Compliance (INCs) against offshore contractors (Halliburton and Transocean) in the wake of the...more
Scott Angelle took over as the Director of the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, May 23. Mr. Angelle is well known to the oil and gas...more