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American oil billionaire Harold Hamm's $60 million settlement of a shareholder lawsuit over his 2022 take-private of Continental Resources Inc. is before an Oklahoma judge for final approval, a step that would end more than three years of litigation.
The settlement, reached on April 14 about three weeks before the case was due to go to trial, would pay $60 million in cash to former Continental shareholders who were cashed out at $74.28 a share when Hamm and his family took the shale producer private. Judge Richard C. Ogden of the District Court of Oklahoma County granted preliminary approval on July 1 and set a final approval hearing for Nov. 10 in the case, In re Continental Resources, Inc. Shareholder Litigation, No. CJ-2022-4162.
Hamm and former Continental Chief Executive Officer Bill Berry, the remaining individual defendants, deny the claims. They agreed to settle to avoid the cost and distraction of further litigation, and no court has found wrongdoing.
The claims
The shareholders, led by the law firms Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann LLP and Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check LLP, accused Hamm of breaching his duty of loyalty by paying an unfair price after an unfair process. They also alleged that Hamm bought millions of Continental shares on inside information before the deal was announced, that the company repurchased stock while he was planning the buyout, and that board members who approved the deal were conflicted.
The court denied motions to dismiss in October 2023 and certified a class of former shareholders in July 2024. Two individual defendants were dismissed on summary judgment in December 2025. Trial had been set for May 4.
The class covers people who held Continental common stock at any time from Oct. 17, 2022, through Nov. 22, 2022, when the tender offer closed. Only those who still held shares when the buyout closed will be paid. Payments will be made automatically, without a claim form, once the settlement is approved and any appeals are resolved.
Lawyers for the class plan to seek fees of up to a third of the fund, plus up to $6 million in litigation expenses. The judge will decide those amounts.
A $4.3 billion buyout
Hamm paid about $4.3 billion for the Continental shares his family did not already own. He first offered $70 a share in June 2022 and agreed to $74.28 in October after talks with a special committee of the board. The deal took one of the largest U.S. shale oil producers off the New York Stock Exchange.
Hamm, 80, founded the company that became Continental in 1967, when he was 21, and built it into the biggest operator in North Dakota's Bakken shale field. The son of Oklahoma sharecroppers, he advised Donald Trump on energy policy during the 2016 campaign and remains Continental's executive chairman.
Forbes counts him among the richest people in the U.S., with most of his fortune tied to his family's ownership of Continental.
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