Anandarko Petroleum has agreed to pay $26 million to settle allegations that its predecessor in interest, Kerr-McGee Oil & Gas Corporation, knowingly filed false federal crude oil reports and underpaid royalties to the U.S. government.  A federal jury found against Kerr-McGee in 2007 but due to appellate issues, a judgment was not entered until September 2010.  Under the settlement, both sides have agreed to forgo any appeals.

Bobby Maxwell, a former auditor for the Minerals Management Service (MMS), brought a False Claims Act case against Kerr-McGee when his supervisors blocked his investigation of the company’s evasion of royalty payments.  Mr. Maxwell was fired from MMS after his suit became public.  MMS opposed Mr. Maxwell’s case and the Department of Justice declined to intervene until after he prevailed at trial in 2007.  As a result of his efforts, Mr. Maxwell will receive the maximum award permitted for whistleblowers in non-intervened cases–30 percent of the government’s total recovery.

Mr. Maxwell’s allegations of MMS’s insufficient oversight led to an inspector general investigation which revealed several other improprieties, ultimately leading to the Secretary of the Interior’s decision to abolish the agency in 2009.

Read the entire article, “Bobby Maxwell, fed whistleblower, earns $7.5 million in oil company battle”