Thursday marked the end of the epic nine-week divorce trial of Oklahoma’s richest man, oil magnate and Continental Resources CEO Harold Hamm. With billions of dollars of company wealth at stake, the unusually secretive trial could end with the largest divorce judgment in history.
During the proceedings, lawyers for Harold Hamm and his wife of 26 years, Sue Ann Hamm, presented starkly different views of how much wealth should be divided by the court. The money is mostly tied up in a 68 percent stake in Continental, whose shares are in Harold’s name. Expert witnesses for Sue Ann Hamm, a former attorney at Continental, pressed the court to divide as much as $17 billion in wealth that has accrued in Harold’s shares of the company since 1988, when she married Harold.
Such a multibillion-dollar award could force Harold Hamm to liquidate a significant portion of his Continental shares, eroding his control of one of America’s fastest-growing energy companies. Continental is a leading driller in the Bakken oilfield of North Dakota and Montana.
Harold’s side contends his wife deserves almost none of it.
