A Dallas County jury on Friday found in favor of a German oil executive who lost his job in 2023 amid allegations that he’d stolen millions of dollars from his employers through phony commission and royalty deals.
A jury in the court of state District Judge Martin Hoffman found on its third day of deliberations that U.S. subsidiaries of Global Oil & Gas AG, a German concern whose American operations were headquartered in the greater Dallas area, breached their employment agreements with Bernard Tubeileh when he was fired or forced to resign.
Tubeileh, a co-founder of Global Oil & Gas, moved from Germany to the United States to oversee the international company’s American operations in 2015. He lost his job eight years later.
The jury awarded Tubeileh about $7.7 million in damages, according to his lawyer, Brian Lauten of Dallas. With a related award of attorneys’ fees, Lauten said the total payout by the Global companies could exceed $10 million.
“The jury listened carefully to the testimony of lots of witnesses, saw a lot of documents and concluded that Global breached the four corners of Bernard’s employment agreements with the companies,” Lauten said. “It looked to the jurors like Bernard was the victim of a witch hunt.”
Michael Hurst of Lynn Pinker Hurst & Schwegmann in Dallas, the chief local counsel for the U.S. Global entities, said: “This was a long and complex trial, and I am proud to have been brought in to help try it. As always, we deeply appreciate the jury’s time and attention. Judge Hoffman was his characteristically outstanding self, and despite the highly contentious nature of the case and the challenges we faced, I truly enjoyed the battle alongside a very good lawyer and longtime colleague, Brian Lauten. There are many interesting issues to be sorted through with the court, and we look forward to participating in that process with optimism and determination.”
In his opening statement on Jan. 15 and throughout the trial, Hurst contended that Tubeileh stole tens of millions of dollars from his employers through fraudulent schemes intended to mask a series of self-dealing transactions.
Lauten said jurors bought none of that.
“The evidence was clear that Bernard fulfilled his employment agreements with Global and worked diligently to find and execute successful oil and gas deals in the United States, and that Global breached its agreements with him,” Lauten said.
After he was let go, Tubeileh sued Global’s American subsidiaries in Dallas County on June 6, 2023, alleging that the U.S. companies — Global Oil & Gas Texas and Global Oil & Gas Fields Oklahoma — owed him millions of dollars, including unpaid compensation he was promised in writing and a share of revenues generated by producing wells in which he’d been granted an interest.
His suit also said that since his ouster, one of the Global subsidies stopped making its monthly payments on $2.2 million in loans from him and a financial institution he’s affiliated with — loans the other subsidiary guaranteed.
The U.S. entities filed a counterclaim on Aug. 18, 2023, accusing Tubeileh of fraud and misappropriating company funds, accusations that the jury in Judge Hoffman’s court apparently did not find convincing.
Taking the stand in the case, Tubeileh said he ran every American transaction in which he had a financial interest past his bosses in Germany, and that they approved those deals.
“They never complained about anything,” he said.
Global’s claims that Tubeileh defrauded his employers never surfaced until after he sued Global’s American subsidiaries over his ouster, Lauten told the jury.
The case number in Dallas County District Court is DC-23-07534.