Range Resources Corporation

On February 10, 2021, Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection (the “DEP”) announced that Range Resources had paid a $294,000 civil penalty to the agency on January 8, 2021 for violating the 2012 Oil and Gas Act.  According to the DEP’s investigation, "between Tuesday, July 16, 2013, and Monday, October 11, 2017, 42 of Range Resources' conventional wells were placed on inactive status but were never used again" and that several of the Company's "wells had not been in use for 12 months at the time Range Resources submitted its applications for inactive status," even though "after 12 consecutive months of no production, the well would be classified as abandoned and must be plugged."  In addition to paying the DEP's civil penalty, Range Resources was ultimately required to plug the wells the agency identified as having no viable future use to remediate the issue.

On this news, Range Resource’s stock price fell $0.62 per share, or 6.08%, to close at $9.57 per share on February 11, 2021, thereby injuring investors.

The complaint filed in this class action alleges that throughout the Class Period, Defendants made materially false and/or misleading statements, as well as failed to disclose material adverse facts about the Company’s business, operations, and prospects. Specifically, Defendants failed to disclose to investors that: (1) Range Resources had improperly designated the status of its wells in Pennsylvania since at least 2013; (2) the foregoing conduct subjected the Company to a heightened risk of regulatory investigation and enforcement, as well as artificially decreased the Company's periodically reported cost estimates to plug and abandon its wells; (3) the Company was the subject of a DEP investigation from sometime between September 2017 to January 2021 for improperly designating the status of its wells; (4) the DEP investigation foreseeably would and ultimately did lead to the Company incurring regulatory fines; and (5) as a result, Defendants’ positive statements about the Company’s business, operations, and prospects were materially misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis at all relevant times.