Quicksilver Resources Inc. v. BreitBurn Energy Partners L.P., et al.

Quicksilver alleged that BreitBurn made misleading statements and material omissions to induce Quicksilver to exchange its assets for cash and BreitBurn units. After the exchange, BreitBurn adopted an amendment to its partnership agreement that gave its unitholders the right to elect directors of BreitBurn’s general partner and placed a cap on the number of BreitBurn units any entity or group could vote. Quicksilver claimed the cap served no rational business purpose and was only adopted to entrench BreitBurn’s directors. Compass Lexecon expert Daniel R. Fischel filed an expert report demonstrating that Quicksilver failed to establish the existence of any damages and that there were legitimate economic reasons for the cap. The case settled on very favorable terms. Fischel was assisted by Jerry Lumer, Vince Warther and Avisheh Mohsenin of Compass Lexecon’s Chicago office. We worked with Harry Reasoner and Jennifer Poppe of Vinson & Elkins LLP.