Arbitration Considerations
Just what is arbitration and how does it differ from court proceedings? Generally speaking, both court proceedings and arbitration proceedings are adversarial processes in which a third party (or parties, in the case of a jury trial) is asked to settle a dispute. In both court and arbitration, an award of some kind will be issued to the prevailing party. Courts issue final judgments...Read More
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Hydraulic Fracturing Law Seminar
The folks at the National Business Institute have asked me to speak about oil and gas leasing at a seminar in early April. The seminar title is Hydraulic Fracturing Law, and it promises to feature a number of interesting and valuable presentations on energy-related topics such as land valuations, regulatory challenges, as well as environmental concerns. I will be discussing the basic...Read More
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Big Tax Changes for 2013
At year end Congress enacted the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 (HR 8), which avoided a plunge over the so-called “fiscal cliff.” That supposed cataclysm would have resulted from a combination of the sunset of the Bush 2001 tax cuts and the automatic government spending cuts negotiated last summer in return for an extension of the federal debt ceiling. The 2001 law freed nearly half of...Read More
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Oil and Gas Update – December 2012
Since my last update in July, I have perceived a trend of a southward movement of the Utica play. There is presently a good deal of leasing activity in Belmont, Harrison, Noble and Guernsey Counties. Word is that some of the best wells to date have been drilled in that area. Certainly, Carroll County and Columbiana Counties are seeing large numbers of wells drilled, but leasing there is not as...Read More
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Title Defects
Before a landowner will be paid a signing bonus for executing an oil and gas lease, the Lessee needs to make sure that the person who signed the lease is the person who owns the oil and gas underneath the subject property. To know for sure, the energy company has to spend a good amount of time doing research at the local courthouse. There, they search through old deed books and try to...Read More
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Arbitration
Before the recent interest in eastern Ohio’s utica shale, gas leases were written a little differently. One big difference between the leases of old and the new leases has to do with how the Lessor (the landowner) and Lessee (the energy company) settle disputes. Where old leases didn’t quite restrict the methods by which the parties could settle their disputes, new leases can...Read More
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