Plaintiffs Keep Trying

Parker Drilling's directors are facing a shareholder suit that was brought after the company's detailed disclosure earlier this month that it is being investigated by the Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission for compliance problems in Nigeria and Kazakhstan.

Courthouse News said the derivative suit was filed in Harris County Court in Texas.

The suit alleges breach of fiduciary duty, abuse of control, gross mismanagement and wasting corporate assets. It named Robert Parker Jr., Robert Parker, John Gibson, Roger Plank, Robert McKee, George Donnelly, Robert Goldman, Gary King, Rudolph Reinfrank and David Mannon.

As we've reported, Parker is one of the dozen or so oil and gas-related companies dragged into FCPA compliance problems by Panalpina, the Swiss logistics firm that allegedly bribed overseas customs and licensing officials on behalf of its clients. Among those investigated by the DOJ and SEC in addition to Parker are Schlumberger, Shell, Tidewater, Nabors Industries, Transocean, GlobalSantaFe Corp., ENSCO, Cameron, Noble Corp., and Pride International. Panalpina itself was hit with a shareholder derivative suit in federal court in Texas last year. 

There's no private right of action under the FCPA. So private litigants have to resort to other causes of action -- such as common law fraud, RICO, securities law violations, or breach of fiduciary duties. But private litigants haven't done well with FCPA-related claims. BAE directors this year won dismissal of a bribe-related case, as did Dow Chemical's.

In 2008, the Ninth Circuit in Glazer Capital Management v. Magistri put an obstacle in the path of plaintiffs. The court raised the "scienter" bar for FCPA-related claims against officers and directors under the federal securities laws. Since then, plaintiffs have filed FCPA-based derivative claims in state court, including one in Texas a year ago against some of the officers and directors of Halliburton and its one-time subsidiary, KBR.