Released.

In bringing to an end a long-running international oil-and-gas dispute, the Texas Supreme Court examined a seeming tension between two earlier opinions about the specificity required for an effective release: “‘[W]hile the misrepresentation in Schlumberger “pertained to the very matter negotiated, settled, and released,”‘ the misrepresentation in Forest Oil ‘did not concern known disputed matters (which were settled and released) but potential future disputes (which were set aside and reserved).'” The Court concluded:

“Here, the evidence does not suggest that the parties actually considered or discussed allegations that Astra representatives bribed Petrobras officials to approve the 2006 stock-purchase agreement or offered to bribe them to approve the 2012 settlement agreement. But the evidence—including the terms of the settlement agreement itself does establish that the parties entered into the settlement agreement only after an extended series of complex and hotly contested negotiations that included discussions about the need to resolve all prior, pending, and possible claims between the parties, including those that were ‘unknown’ at the time.”

Transcor Astra Group S.A. v. Petrobras America Inc., No. 20-0932 (Tex. April 29, 2022).