In re Concho Resources Inc. Securities Litigation

At all relevant times, Concho Resources Inc. (Concho or the Company) was an independent oil and natural gas company engaged in the acquisition, development, exploration, and production of oil and natural gas properties.  It was subsequently acquired by ConocoPhillips.  The Defendants include Concho, ConocoPhillips (as Concho's successor-in-interest), and certain former Concho executives.  Plaintiffs’ claims arise from Defendants’ allegedly false and misleading statements during the period February 21, 2018, through July 31, 2019, inclusive (the Class Period).

Labaton Keller Sucharow filed a consolidated class action complaint (Consolidated Complaint) on January 7, 2022, alleging violations of Section 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.  The Consolidated Complaint alleged that throughout the Class Period, Defendants touted Concho’s successful transition to “large-scale development” or “manufacturing mode,” meaning that Concho was employing simultaneous completion of tightly spaced wells in its projects.  According to Defendants, this large-scale development was based on validated well spacing, lateral placement, and completion design, which would allow Concho to increase its production while lowering costs.  Moreover, Defendants also assured investors that the Company’s risk profile remained unchanged, as these large-scale development projects were dispersed among the Company’s asset base.  Concho’s flagship large-scale project was the Dominator, a 23-well pad in the Northern Delaware Basin.

Contrary to Defendants’ Class Period statements, however, on August 1, 2019, the Company would admit that Concho had spaced its wells “too tight” across numerous projects, including the Dominator, and that the Company had been forced to significantly reduce its active rig count below prior estimates and issue weak production forecasts.  The market was shocked, and Concho’s stock price collapsed.  As a result, the Consolidated Complaint alleged that throughout the Class Period, Concho’s manufacturing mode development was an unverified and extremely high-risk combination of development methodologies, which included aggressively tight well spacing, and lacked a verifiable basis.  The Consolidated Complaint further alleged that due to Defendants’ failure to account for the concentration of these extremely high-risk projects, both individually and on a portfolio basis, Concho issued artificially inflated production forecasts throughout the Class Period.

On June 23, 2023, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas adopted a magistrate judge’s recommendation to deny Defendants' Motion to Dismiss the Consolidated Complaint and allowed the case to move forward against Defendants with the exception of two former Concho executives.

On April 7, 2025, the court certified the Class comprised of all (1) persons and entities who purchased Concho publicly traded common stock, or otherwise acquired Concho publicly traded common stock from someone who purchased said stock, during the period from February 21, 2018, through July 31, 2019, inclusive (Open Market Subclass), and (2) all persons and entities who acquired Concho publicly traded common stock via Concho's acquisition of RSP Permian, Inc. (RSP Acquisition Subclass).  It is further ordered that Labaton Keller Sucharow is appointed as class counsel for both the Open Market Subclass and RSP Acquisition Subclass.

The case is In re Concho Resources Inc. Securities Litigation, No. 21-cv-02473, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas.  Labaton Keller Sucharow represents Lead Plaintiffs Utah Retirement Systems and Construction Laborers Pension Trust for Southern California.