Attorneys

Biography

Mike is a Shareholder in the Litigation Department, Co-Chair of the Firm's Natural Resources practice group, and a member of the Commercial Law practice group. Mike is also a member of the Firm's Executive Management committee and the Diversity committee. He has more than 20 years' experience in representing and advising both public and privately held companies in a broad range of commercial litigation and business consultation matters, with an emphasis on matters involving energy, oil and gas, environmental, public utility and water law.

Mike's experience includes dozens of breach of natural gas contract cases involving a wide range of contract and statutory construction issues, including the enforcement of pricing provisions; take provisions; take-or-pay provisions; dedication clauses; term provisions; drainage provisions; ratable take requirements; gas quality specification clauses; favored nations clauses; evergreen provisions; "commercial well" and "paying quantities" clauses; and "best efforts" clauses.

He has also successfully defended or prosecuted complex oil and gas litigation claims involving drainage; royalties and accounting for post-production costs; propriety of intra-company sales; determination of payout; gas balancing and oversold reserves; gas pipeline transportation, compression and dehydration charges; and breach of warranty and products liability relating to down-hole failure cases.

Before joining Phillips Murrah in 2001, Mike practiced commercial litigation for 15 years with another well-established Oklahoma City law firm.

Born in New York City in 1961, Mike was raised with his two brothers and three sisters primarily in Seaford, Delaware and Oklahoma City. After graduating high school in Birmingham, Alabama, Mike attended Notre Dame as an accounting undergraduate and the University of Oklahoma Law School, becoming one of the few people he knows who supports both the Irish and the Sooners.

Mike lives in Oklahoma City with his wife, Cathy, and son, Davis. He enjoys high school and collegiate athletics, watching old movies, swimming, cooking and reading about American History.

Practice Areas

Representative Experience

  • Consulted with and successfully defended a client in the administration of its gas supply program, which ultimately lead to savings in the program in excess of $100 million.
  • Defended a major Oklahoma gas purchaser against claims that a newly completed well was dedicated to interstate commerce and, therefore, dedicated to an existing gas purchase and sales agreement, saving the client $18 million on the initial well and tens of millions of dollars more on the additional wells contemplated in the unit.
  • Prosecuted a series of cases against a number of gas gathering companies that had acquired gas supplies outside of the dedicated acreage under existing gas supply contracts, eventually saving the client millions of dollars from the purchase of such undedicated gas.
  • Successfully represented a major Oklahoma corporation in the defense of its franchise rights in several citizen and taxpayer lawsuits.
  • Advised and successfully represented a major Oklahoma utility, both as plaintiff and as defendant, in connection with numerous service territory infringement claims filed by or against competing utilities or service providers.
  • Successfully defended a client against claims totaling $32 million alleging tortious breach of dozens of natural gas sales agreements, bad faith administration of such contracts, fraud and punitive damages.
  • Defended a large Oklahoma company against a $12 million drainage claim that was litigated at summary judgment, then on appeal, and culminated in a successful verdict at trial.
  • Successfully defended an importer of Romanian tubular products, including casing, in two separate multi-million dollar down-hole failure cases.
  • Obtained appellate reversal of State of Oklahoma sales and use tax assessments for a manufacturer of railroad ballast.
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Michael R. Perri