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Commitments and Contingencies
6 Months Ended
Jun. 30, 2021
Commitments And Contingencies Disclosure [Abstract]  
Commitments and Contingencies

(17) COMMITMENTS AND CONTINGENCIES

Litigation

We are the subject of, or party to, a number of pending or threatened legal actions and administrative proceedings arising in the ordinary course of our business including, but not limited to, royalty claims, contract claims and environmental claims. While many of these matters involve inherent uncertainty, we believe that the amount of the liability, if any, ultimately incurred with respect to these actions, proceedings or claims will not have a material adverse effect on our consolidated financial position as a whole or on our liquidity, capital resources or future annual results of operations.

When deemed necessary, we establish reserves for certain legal proceedings. The establishment of a reserve is based on an estimation process that includes the advice of legal counsel and subjective judgment of management. While management believes these reserves to be adequate, it is reasonably possible we could incur additional losses with respect to those matters in

which reserves have been established. We will continue to evaluate our litigation on a quarterly basis and will establish and adjust any litigation reserves as appropriate to reflect our assessment of the then current status of litigation.

We have incurred and will continue to incur capital, operating and remediation expenditures as a result of environmental laws and regulations. As of June 30, 2021, liabilities for remediation were not material. We are not aware of any environmental claims existing as of June 30, 2021 that have not been provided for or would otherwise have a material impact on our financial position or results of operations. Environmental liabilities normally involve estimates that are subject to revision until final resolution, settlement or remediation occurs.

On March 4, 2021 a punitive class action lawsuit was filed in the Western District of Pennsylvania in Case No. 2:21-CV-301 (Jacobowitz v. Range Resources Corporation et al.) in which the Plaintiff seeks to represent a class of Range stockholders who purchased or acquired stock from April 29, 2016 to February 10, 2021. This lawsuit has been transferred to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas (Fort Worth Division). The lawsuit claims that Range misclassified certain wells as inactive rather than having plugged the wells and that such alleged misclassification affected the determination of our asset retirement obligation accrual. The lawsuit claims that the disclosure of a $294,000 agreed penalty that we paid to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) in connection with the DEP’s investigation of our application for inactive status for a small number of our wells which the DEP disclosed during market hours on February 10, 2021 was the basis for the Plaintiffs’ discovery of the alleged misrepresentations. We maintain that the factual allegations and the claims made in the litigation are baseless; there were no misrepresentations made and our asset retirement obligation was properly calculated. We also maintain that the market fully absorbed the information disclosed by the DEP on February 10, 2021 and the stock price on that day did not decrease. Given our view of the litigation as baseless, we plan to vigorously defend the litigation.