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DOJ’s first challenge to an anticompetitive bidding agreement for mineral rights leases

By  |  February 15, 2012

The Department of Justice has filed a civil antitrust complaint in federal district court (Colorado) alleging that Gunnison Energy Corporation (“GEC”), SG Interests I Ltd. and SG Interests VII Ltd. (“SGI”) restrained trade in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act. The actions at issue stem from an alleged agreement between the two oil and gas drillers that only SGI would bid for four natural gas leases sold at an auction held by the U.S. Department of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management, which issues leases for oil and gas exploration on federal lands. The agreement then called for assigning an interest in the leases to GEC.

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    The DOJ has reached a settlement of $550,000, where GEC and SGI would each pay $275,000 in damages suffered by the United States at the auction.

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    Source: DOJ Press Release

     

    Related content: Weyerhaeuser v. Ross-Simmons: The U.S. Supreme Court Rules That The Brooke Group Predatory-Pricing Test Applies to Predatory Bidding (William Rooney, David Park & Raymond Sarola, Wilkie Farr)