Anadarko Petroleum Wins Dismissal of Claims in Oil Spill Dispute

Skadden secured the dismissal of the majority of securities claims brought against Anadarko Petroleum Corporation and its executives by a putative class of shareholders alleging they were misled about the company’s investment in and liability exposure related to the Macondo well that BP was drilling during the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. On July 15, Judge Keith Ellison of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas found that the majority of the allegedly misleading statements attributed to the defendants did not “communicate anything that a reasonable investor would deem important to a securities investment decision." Judge Ellison also adopted Skadden's argument that the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Janus barred the claim that Anadarko should be liable for BP's pre- and post-spill statements related to the accident.