VENTURE CAPITAL POST

Department of Justice filed lawsuit against ValueAct Capital last week, related to Halliburton and Baker Hughes merger. Meanwhile, ValueAct on Monday claimed no wrongdoing and will defend its position.

European Union antitrust regulator resumed its review on the takeover of Baker Hughes by Halliburton. European Commission plan to reach decision in August whether to approve or veto the deal.

United States Justice Department has prepared a lawsuit to block acquisition of Baker Hughes. Halliburton took over the company in November 2014.

Oklahoma-based energy company, Chesapeake Energy Corp said it had laid off about 15 percent of its employees and citing the low oil price and gas as the main reason for the move. The second-largest natural gas company in the U.S had laid off 740 workers on Tuesday so far.

Schlumberger had announced conclusive merger agreement with Cameron in which both companies shall combine in a stock and cash transaction. The agreement was unanimously confirmed by the boards of directors of both companies on Thursday.

As the price of crude oil continues to slip down, the oil companies are cutting jobs to survive the business. In the first quarter of this year, blue collar jobs were deterred, this point, engineers and scientists will be affected.

Oil field work was coming in fast when GoFrac doubled its workforce and equipment fleet at the beginning of last year, just one of hundreds of small oil service companies thriving on the revival of U.S. drilling.

Oil fell about 2 percent on Friday as a rallying dollar and profit-taking ahead of a long U.S. holiday weekend cut short a two-day run-up in crude prices.

Oil prices rose on Monday after Islamic State militants said they had seized control of the key city of Ramadi in western Iraq, raising fears of deeper turmoil in the oil-producing country.

The number of U.S. drilling rigs in use fell sharply in the week to Friday, almost doubling the cuts of the past two weeks and hitting the lowest since April 2011, a survey showed.

Oil rallied again on Friday, with benchmark Brent crude having its largest two-week gain in 17 years, as falling oil rig counts and violence in producer Libya helped further stall a selloff that began in June.

Halliburton Co's $35 billion takeover of Baker Hughes Inc will create an oilfield services powerhouse in North Dakota with more than half the cementing market and a leading position in fracking, according to data seen by Reuters.

In June 2013, activist investors got the board of SandRidge Energy Inc (SD.N) to fire its CEO Tom Ward, arguing that he had mismanaged the Oklahoma City company and destroyed billions in shareholder value.