The bankruptcy case of a Canonsburg, Pa.-based oilfield construction company that closed abruptly late last month will occur in Pittsburgh instead of Texas after the company opted not to contest the involuntary bankruptcy case filed in the Pittsburgh federal bankruptcy court last month instead of one it filed last week in Houston, the Pittsburgh Business Times reported. GW Ridge LLC was a natural gas pipeline project manager and oilfield services firm that stopped operations in late November. The company had at one time at least 200 employees and a headquarters on Technology Drive in Southpointe, and had done pipeline construction for several major companies. But it ran aground months after what GW Ridge in a filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas called "material misconduct" that was discovered earlier this year and led to a $2.1 million tax liability and an inability to continue. Several local creditors, owed $337,000 and represented by the Law Office of Robert O Lampl in Pittsburgh, on Nov. 22 filed an involuntary chapter 7 bankruptcy against GW Ridge LLC in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. That was followed a week later by the company on Dec. 1 filing bankruptcy in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas and subsidiaries Ridge Payroll and Ridge Holdings Dec. 2 in the same court. Ridge Payroll handled payroll for GW Ridge, according to filings. There had been a question about whether the Pittsburgh or Texas courts would handle the GW Ridge bankruptcies, but on Tuesday in Houston, GW Ridge filed a motion seeking a dismissal of the case in Texas in favor of proceeding with the bankruptcy filed by the creditors and the Lampl office in Pittsburgh.
