Lady Freyberg: Examples of How Contemporary Courts in Alberta Approach the Modern Business Realities of the Freehold Petroleum and Natural Gas Lease

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Volume 46, No 2 ISBN: 1925-8356   |   Courtesy of Canadian Energy Law Edition   |    View Original

Authors: Chris Simard, David Holub, Larina Taylor

The recently concluded case of Freyberg v. Fletcher Challenge Oil and Gas exemplifies the extent to which business realities have impacted the industry’s ability to properly address legal challenges in a relatively inflexible historical jurisprudential context. The authors, all participants in the six-yearLady Freyberg action, detail the challenges facing modern oil and gas industry litigants given the somewhat rigid standards espoused by courts in the older jurisprudence. Given the rapidly shifting economic and institutional reality in the oil and gas industry, the authors reason, modern courts must approach such cases in a flexible manner and remain sensitive to the fact that business realities may have changed since the establishment of historical precedents.

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