A Houston trial court has granted summary judgment in favor of Ware Jackson’s client, a major international energy company. The plaintiff company had claimed the client breached a settlement agreement from a prior patent infringement suit, which it asked the court to rescind, and sought over $11 million in alleged lost profits and expenses, as well as attorneys’ fees. Ware Jackson successfully argued on summary judgment that the client did not cause any injury to the plaintiff and that the plaintiff’s contract claim was barred by res judicata and the statute of limitations. The litigation team included Eileen O’Neill, Paul Smith, Michelle Blair, Tyler Henkel, and Jordan Parker.

A district court in Harris County, Texas granted summary judgment in favor of Ware Jackson’s client, a multi-national energy company. The plaintiff had sought over $2 billion in damages, accusing the client of committing fraud and engaging in a conspiracy in connection with the sale of equipment for several land-based oil rigs that allegedly led to the collapse of plaintiff’s company. Ware Jackson partners Eileen O’Neill and Michelle Blair successfully moved for summary judgment on the grounds that the plaintiff’s claims were barred by awards they previously obtained in favor of the client’s subsidiaries in two international arbitrations involving the same allegations. The court dismissed the plaintiff’s claims with prejudice, and the plaintiff did not appeal.

This decision brings an end to a 13-year dispute that was fractured across four forums, including state and federal courts and two international arbitrations, with Ware Jackson’s client group ultimately prevailing.

After securing a complete victory for a major oil and gas client in an international arbitration, Ware Jackson partners Eileen O’Neill and Michelle Blair successfully defended the arbitration award in federal district court and again on appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The arbitrator—a former Texas Supreme Court Justice—had dismissed claims against Ware Jackson’s client for over $2 billion in alleged damages by a failed Saudi Arabian joint venture and awarded the client over $8.5 million for its counterclaim for unpaid and past-due equipment invoices. In a pithy opinion, the Fifth Circuit, like the federal district court, found no merit to the joint venture’s arguments for vacating the arbitration award or sending the dispute back to arbitration.