At a time when Goldman Sachs' business and sales practices are under the microscope, the spat between the gilded bank and a group of small oil and gas developers take on some added significance. The dispute has been percolating along for a year at least, but heated up again when dozens of these small energy developers sued Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS), charging that it conspired to cheat them out of the proceeds for delivered oil and gas.

More than 80 Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas producers say they are owed millions of dollars on contracts for June and July 2008 delivery. J. Aron, the commodities unit of Goldman Sachs, bought the physical product at about the time it was issuing a massive margin call to SemGroup, which helped push it toward bankruptcy. The suit charges that Goldman Sachs, which was also a banker to SemGroup, took advantage of confidential information about SemGroup, to essentially steal oil and gas. SemGroup hedged its stored product with Goldman commodities unit J. Aron.

The suit says J. Aron took control of the stored reserves, knowing that it would not have to pay for it. Forbes notes that with this suit, "we're one step closer to finding out if Goldman Sachs was responsible for helping to goose oil prices to record highs in the summer of 2008 by conspiring against SemGroup in massive crude oil trades." 

For more:
- here's the Forbes article

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