Two complaints recently filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania serve as examples of the wide scope of gas lease-related litigation coming out of the state’s natural gas plays.
In one case, a landowner filed a class action suit against two subsidiaries of Royal Dutch Shell, alleging one of the companies forestalled competitors by holding itself out as the landowner’s oil and gas lessee, only to ultimately cancel the lease and renege on an agreement to pay the landowner a nearly $140,000 signing bonus once gas prices dropped.
