Joseph H. Bocock joined McAfee & Taft in 1978 and throughout his multi-decade commercial litigation career has served as lead counsel in numerous disputes involving significant oil and gas relation litigation. In fact, he has successfully represented more than 30 oil companies, both major and independent, in a wide variety of litigation matters. These matters include royalty owner disputes, joint interest audit disputes, breach of gas purchase agreements, gas gathering disputes, and a variety of other disputes among working interest owners.
His experience is unique in that he combines traditional oil and gas litigation with a remarkable depth of experience in commercial arbitration. He has tried more than 25 commercial arbitrations to verdict, many of which have involved disputes with pipeline companies and gas purchasers.
Starting in the early 1980s, Joe served as sole litigation counsel for MGF Oil Corporation, handling more than 30 pending litigation matters. These included a federal jury verdict in excess of $1,000,000 against ASA Energy, as well as a 1988 dispute with James P Linn over the wisdom of halting a deep gas well.
Following the collapse of Penn Square Bank in 1982, he was involved in almost a decade of securities litigation representing Jenkins Petroleum, Copeland Energy Corporation, and later several of their investors in complex disputes with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). More than a dozen major lawsuits were involved in this representation.
In 1986 he was successful in representing Flag-Redfern Oil Company in a unique case concerning constructive notice among working interest owners (See, 790 F.2d 828).
In the 1990s, Joe was involved in two major industry disputes resulting in successful commercial arbitration awards for firm clients. In the first, he represented Bonray Energy in a dispute with Samson Resources that resulted in an award for 100% of the sums sought and all attorneys’ fees for Bonray. In the second, he battled OG&E in an arbitration of behalf of Eberly & Meade, Inc., a natural gas production company, that resulted in a substantial “take or pay” award. During the same period he also filed a creative federal RICO action against ONEOK of behalf of Eberly & Meade which resulted in a settlement in excess of the actual damages that were claimed by his client. The claim was the first use of RICO to deal with the widespread and unjustified attempts by the subsidiaries of utilities to escape “take or pay” obligations. In 2000 he also represented Arnold Oil Company in securing a successful settlement of a “take or pay” case against OG&E.
In 2001, Joe became deeply involved in the royalty owner nightmare over allocation of gathering costs and was retained by Kaiser-Francis Oil Company late in the life of a major lawsuit to try what was then the only class action royalty lawsuit that ever went to jury verdict. He led a team of over 20 professionals in a five-week trial in Guymon, OK, and the ensuing multi-year appeal. The many lessons of that dispute had implications for almost every energy company involved in Oklahoma exploration.
In 2008, Joe initiated an arbitration action on behalf of The GHK Company against a Seminole Energy affiliate involving breach of a gas gathering agreement covering both sweet and sour gas in a single field. The matter was settled favorably in April of 2009, only weeks before the scheduled hearing in Denver. In 2009 he represented Avalon Energy in a dispute among former working interest owners with Bedford Energy.
Other past litigation clients have included Texaco Trading & Transport, Inc., Argonaut Energy Corporation, Republic Resources, Getty Oil Company, Crawley Petroleum Corporation, Questa Energy Corporation, Kirby Exploration Company, Inexco Oil Co., Clayton E. Lee and Brooks Hall Oil Corporation.