Larry Veselka

Petty Business Enterprises, L.P. vs. Chesapeake Exploration, LLC et al.

• Brought claims for his client, a large family-owned ranch in the South Texas Eagle Ford, against Chesapeake and co-lessees for their underpaying royalties due for the third time in less than 10 years. Originally filed in state court, the matter was removed to Bankruptcy Court after Chesapeake filed for Chapter 11 protection in June 2020. The matter was tried in May 2021. The Bankruptcy Court's memorandum opinion in September 2021 would have entitled Petty to more than $10 million depending on the amount of fees awarded by the court. The matter was settled confidentially.

 DJH Minerals vs. Sanchez Energy n/k/a Mesquite Energy

• Client, a 50% owner of a 100,000-acre Eagle Ford ranch, settled its claims for unpaid royalties due from Mesquite on the Saturday before the jury trial was to start on Monday.

 Dragging S, et al vs. Apache Exploration

• Clients, four different parts of a family from Texas and Montana, resolved an eight-figure claim for additional revenue they claimed Apache owed them for production from their lease in Irion County, Texas.

 [Confidential]

• A former lessee of property in the Permian Basin initiated an arbitration against his regular client and the successor lessee. After a one-week trial, the panel awarded the plaintiff no relief.

 Enduring v. Big Lake Gas

• Enduring Resources acquired oil and gas assets in the Permian Basin in 2011. In 2012, Big Lake Gas Plant asserted that these assets were subject to a Right of First Refusal (ROFR) in a terminated gas purchasing contract between Big Lake and Enduring's predecessors. In 2014, American Energy-Permian Basin (now Sable Resources) acquired Enduring's interest in this acreage. Big Lake sued Enduring, Sable, and others, alleging that Enduring and Sable breached the ROFR by failing to deliver all gas to the Big Lake, seeking damages up to $12 million and, alternatively, specific performance. Enduring Resources denied that a valid ROFR existed and that Big Lake's exercise of it was effective. A confidential settlement was reached in December 2016.

 Enduring v. AEPB

• Enduring sold its Permian Basin oil shale play to a unit of American Energy-Permian Basin for $2.5 billion. When American Energy did not pay the approximately $25 million post-closing purchase price adjustment as calculated by Enduring, Enduring sued to collect the $25 million in February 2015. American Energy counterclaimed for $150-$178 million. A confidential settlement was reached in April 2016.

Somers ex. Rel. EGL, Inc. v. Crane

• Defended members of a special committee of the board of directors in direct and derivative claims brought by shareholders when the CEO made an offer to take the public company private. The trial court dismissed the direct class and derivative claims, allowing a $2 billion offer to take the company private and paying the shareholders $47.50 per share when the first bid was $36.00 per share. The ruling was affirmed by the First Court of Appeals and the Texas Supreme Court denied review. The ruling clarified important questions of Texas law on shareholder litigation.

United States of America v. Jack Stanley

• Represented a former chairman of KBR in the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act prosecution regarding the award of the engineering, design, and construction contract for the Bonny Island liquified natural gas project in Nigeria. Jack Stanley was the first cooperator in a prosecution that led to multiple felony guilty pleas, deferred prosecution agreements, and fines or restitution approaching $1.7 billion dollars for multiple multinational corporations and individuals. After pleading guilty under an agreement to serve seven years, convinced the court to give client the benefit of his cooperation and other factors in reducing the sentence to only 30 months.

Hosford, et al. v. Stroud Production, LLC, et al

• Prevailed in the Texas Supreme Court in a closely watched oil and gas dispute. The litigation arose out of an oil and gas lease termination in the High Island Field in Galveston County in 2004. The plaintiffs owned overriding royalty interests in the lease and argued that they were injured when the lease terminated for lack of production, extinguishing their overriding royalty interests. The Supreme Court's denial of the plaintiffs' petition for review kept in place the First Court of Appeals' opinion that clients owed no duty to the plaintiffs and reversed a judgment entered by the District Court against Stroud Production LLC, et al. Plaintiffs were asserting claims unrecognized in Texas and that would have disrupted well-established concepts of Texas oil and gas law.

Additional Representative Matters

• Represented former head of exploration and production for a Fortune 500 energy corporation in a four-year criminal/civil/regulatory investigation and litigation arising from the corporation's $1 billion write-down of reserves. The federal criminal investigation resulted in no indictments. The civil class action shareholder and derivative cases settled with no contribution by our client. The SEC case settled with a consent decree neither admitting nor denying charges but with SEC agreement to allege only claims based on negligent conduct and not fraud.
• Obtained dismissal of a multimillion dollar securities class action in federal district court and a related derivative action in state district court for the same publicly traded health care company. The class action plaintiffs ultimately dismissed their appeal of the class action dismissal two weeks before the argument before the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
• Successfully obtained a resolution by deferred prosecution agreement in US Department of Justice investigation of alleged Lanham Act violations in US District Court in Portland, Oregon.
• Obtained successful summary judgment for NL Industries, dismissing case seeking tens of millions of dollars in remediation of lead paint in school district buildings. Got the summary judgment affirmed by the Court of Appeals. The basis of summary judgment – lack of proof of causation – led to voluntary dismissals of four other cases around Texas in addition to two other cases in Harris County.

• Chambers USA, Litigation: General Commercial (2024)
• Lawdragon, 500 Leading Litigators in America (2025)
• Lawdragon, 500 Leading Energy Lawyers (2025)
• "Top 50 Verdicts" (2016)
• Super Lawyers, Texas, Business Litigation, Securities Litigation, White Collar Crimes (2005-2024)
• Benchmark Litigation, "Local Litigation Star" (2012-2023)
• Benchmark Appellate, "Litigation Star" (2013)

• American Bar Association, Litigation and Criminal Justice sections
• American Board of Trial Advocates, Houston Chapter
• American Leadership Forum
• Fellow, Houston Bar Foundation
• Houston Bar Association, Federal Practice, Litigation, and Oil, Gas & Minerals sections
• Houston Lawyer Chapter of the American Constitution Society
• Alumnus, Leadership Houston
• State Bar of Texas, Antitrust and Business Litigation, Criminal Justice, Litigation section, and Oil & Gas Energy Resources Law
• Sustaining Life Fellow, Texas Bar Foundation
• Twice appointed by the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas to serve on the Merit Selection Panel for Magistrate Judges