Andrew Hicks

Practice Areas

Andy represents plaintiffs and defendants in complex commercial disputes and tort claims. A tenacious trial lawyer and astute legal strategist, he has built an exceptional track record both in the courtroom and before arbitral tribunals in the United States and abroad.

With extensive experience in energy and healthcare matters, Andy is often called upon to represent participants in those industries. His practice includes a variety of disputes involving, among other things, energy industry transactions; joint operating agreements; the development, processing, and sale of oil, gas, and other commodities; partnerships and joint ventures; professional negligence; products liability; trade secrets; breaches of fiduciary duty; and other business torts.

Clients prize Andy’s ability to “seize the heart of the matter and move quickly to a successful resolution.” In addition to litigating and arbitrating cases, he provides strategic advice to minimize the risk of litigation and assists clients with negotiating, drafting, and enforcing arbitration clauses.

Career

Andy began his legal career at leading national law firms, where he focused on commercial litigation and international arbitration before co-founding Hicks Johnson in 2007.

Professional Memberships

- State Bar of Oklahoma Bar Association

- State Bar of Texas Bar Association

Work Highlights

- Represented client in a $200 million expert determination concerning the construction of a gas processing plant in west Texas and the execution of a Gas Treatment and CO2 Delivery Agreement. Despite conceding liability for substantial penalties owing due to the client’s failure to deliver contractually required volumes of CO2, we obtained a reduction in liability of approximately $20 million by arguing offsets from a separate contract between the parties and compensation for CO2 deliveries from a time period not contemplated by the contract.

- Represented plaintiffs—two individuals and partners in a liquefied natural gas (LNG) project development company—in a usurpation of corporate opportunity and theft of trade secrets case. Filed suit in Texas state court against the clients’ former partners and the “new” company they had formed, alleging that they had improperly transferred the intellectual property and other assets created by the partnership for their benefit. Through extensive research, we were able to show numerous similarities between the original venture and the defendants’ “new” organization, including virtually identical business plans, marketing materials, and substantive work. We sought damages of $168 million; the case quickly resolved through a stock settlement that more than made the clients whole.

- Represented energy industry client in a $100 million-plus domestic arbitration concerning the propriety of amounts charged by the operator under the parties’ joint operating agreement.

- Represented major oil company in a dispute with LNG import facility regarding interpretation of the client’s long-term Terminal Usage Agreement. Due to substantial pre-dispute research and analysis, favorably resolved this roughly $400 million dispute through pre-arbitration negotiations.

- Represented Houston-based exploration and production company in a $20 million breach of warranty and product liability case against several steel manufacturing companies. The client’s 18,000-foot horizontal well was rendered a complete loss when the defendant manufacturers’ casing separated during hydraulic fracturing operations. This case involved complex issues concerning the steel manufacturing process and attendant metallurgy, drilling and completions operations, and even the application of the laws of India to certain claims. After taking and defending over 30 depositions in roughly 45 days and defeating the defendants’ numerous dispositive motions, settled favorably with all but one defendant.

- Represented a Houston-based hospital against a national health insurer seeking to recover $15 million in claims payments for emergency care, alleging that it had been defrauded because freestanding emergency departments were not “hospital-based” for purposes of claim reimbursement. Successfully invoked the Buckman preemption to argue that the insurer’s claims—which were based on alleged misrepresentations to Medicare—were precluded by the client’s Medicare designation as a provider-based entity (PBE). We defeated the insurer’s claims in their entirety on summary judgment.

- Represented a publicly traded healthcare company in a fraud and breach of contract action against the financial advisory firm that took the company public. The case settled on favorable terms after Andy obtained a temporary injunction preventing the defendants from trading or pledging the stock they held in the client company.

- Defended a hospital against claims brought by a health insurer seeking the disgorgement of approximately $20 million in claims paid due to allegedly improper coding of claims. Represented the client in parallel proceedings in state and federal court and ultimately negotiated a favorable settlement prior to trial.

Education