US: Deceased ex-Chesapeake Energy CEO indicted on antitrust charges

A recently deceased oil executive was charged by a federal grand jury.

On Tuesday, the Department of Justice announced that Aubrey McClendon was charged with conspiring to rig bids for the purchase of oil and natural gas leases in northwest Oklahoma.

The indictment claims that McClendon orchestrated a conspiracy between two large oil and gas companies to not bid against each other for oil and natural gas leases in northwest Oklahoma.

The conspiracy allegedly ran from December 2007 to March 2012, during which time he was CEO of Chesapeake Energy.

Investigators claim the conspirators would decide ahead of time who would win the leases.The winning bidder would then assign an interest in the leases to the other company.

Former United States Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma, Robert McCampbell, gave us an insight on what this means next for the former CEO.

“It’s a lot easier to talk about it than it is to prove all this in court beyond a reasonable doubt,” McCampbell said. “There are lots of perfectly innocent explanations for why a company would not pursue a particular lease, something as simple as their geologist didn’t think it was a good place to drill for example.”

Officials claim McClendon instructed his employees to execute the agreement, which included withdrawing bids for certain leases and agreeing on the allocation of interests in the leases between the conspiring companies.

McClendon died in a fiery single-car crash Wednesday, a day after he was charged with conspiring to rig bids for oil and natural gas leases.

McClendon, 56, crashed into an embankment while traveling at a “high rate of speed” in Oklahoma City just after 9 a.m. local time, said Capt. Paco Balderrama of the Oklahoma City Police Department. Flames engulfed McClendon’s vehicle “immediately,” Balderrama said. He added that police determined McClendon was not wearing a seatbelt after earlier being unable to tell.

“He pretty much drove straight into the wall,” Balderrama said.

Chesapeake said in a statement that it is “deeply saddened by the news” and its “thoughts and prayers are with the McClendon family during this difficult time.”

Full Content: The Wall Street Journal

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