By Daniel Gilbert And Erin Ailworth
Chesapeake Energy Corp. sued its ousted founder, Aubrey
McClendon, claiming Tuesday that he stole sensitive data in the
days before he left in 2013.
The company alleges that Mr. McClendon, while still running the
company, had his assistant print out maps and data about oil and
gas prospects in Ohio and sent the same information to his personal
email address.
"Due to the concealed nature of McClendon's conduct, Chesapeake
did not discover McClendon's misappropriation until long after he
had separated from Chesapeake," the company stated in a lawsuit
filed in Oklahoma County District Court.
Mr. McClendon, who founded rival American Energy Partners LP
after leaving Chesapeake, called the lawsuit "baseless" and accused
Chesapeake of trying to breach his severance agreement. American
Energy said in a news release Tuesday that the agreement allowed
Mr. McClendon access to data concerning his personal investments in
Chesapeake's wells.
"It is beyond belief that the company that I co-founded 25 years
ago and where I worked tirelessly to build it into one of America's
largest and most successful oil and gas producers has now decided
to add insult to injury almost two years to the day after my
resignation by wrongly accusing me of misappropriating
information," Mr. McClendon said in a news release.
A spokesman for Chesapeake defended the lawsuit. "We believe
that pursuing these legacy claims is in the best interest of the
company and its shareholders," spokesman Gordon Pennoyer said.
Mr. McClendon co-founded Chesapeake and built it into the
country's second-largest natural-gas producer after Exxon Mobil
Corp. He was ousted in 2013 after clashing with the company's board
of directors, which had been revamped by its largest
shareholders.
It wasn't a clean break. Mr. McClendon had acquired a small
stake in thousands of wells drilled by Chesapeake, an arrangement
that ended last year. American Energy said Mr. McClendon has paid
Chesapeake nearly $2.5 billion for his share of well costs, and
that he still owns a stake in more than 16,000 wells.
American Energy, based about a mile from Chesapeake's campus in
Oklahoma City, has expanded rapidly. As of the fall, the new firm
had raised $14 billion in equity and debt.
Chesapeake claimed Mr. McClendon began soliciting investors for
his new firm just hours after it announced he would leave in 2013.
The company alleged that the maps and data he took with him showed
unleased oil and gas acreage in Ohio's Utica shale--where American
Energy made some of its first acquisitions.
American Energy said the information Mr. McClendon has "is
rightfully his under the terms of the agreements Chesapeake made
with him in early 2013."
Write to Daniel Gilbert at daniel.gilbert@wsj.com and Erin
Ailworth at Erin.Ailworth@wsj.com
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