BreitBurn Energy Partners L.P. said late Monday that it will postpone its annual shareholder meeting until sometime next year, due to delays in settling corporate governance-related litigation.

Quicksilver Resources Inc., a Texas oil and gas company that acquired 41 percent of the outstanding units of the Los Angeles oil and gas partnership in 2007, sued the company in October 2008. Quicksilver claimed that an amendment to BreitBurn’s limited partnership agreement relating to the selection of directors had not been properly approved and unfairly limited its voting rights.

This amendment provided some of BreitBurn’s limited partners of which Quicksilver is not one with a new right to nominate and elect members of the general partnership at the 2009 annual meeting.

Due to ongoing discovery issues, however, a hearing on the lawsuit was postponed first in April and now in September, necessitating the need to delay the annual meeting, said BreitBurn, which specializes in squeezing additional capacity from older wells in the Los Angeles Basin and other parts of the country.

Prior to the announcement, Breitburn shares closed up 5 cents, or less than 1 percent, to $9.37 on the Nasdaq.