U.S.
supreme court tells BP to pay up for 2010 Gulf DEADLY EXPLOSION AND SUBSEQUENT
MASSIVE oil spill, rejects appeal of spill settlement
12/08/2014 12:16:22
NEW ORLEANS -- The
Supreme Court is leaving in place BP's multibillion-dollar settlement with
lawyers for businesses and residents over the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of
Mexico.
The justices did not
comment Monday in rejecting the London-based oil giant's arguments that lower
courts misinterpreted settlement terms and put BP on the hook to pay inflated
and bogus claims by businesses.
The court's decision
makes the economic and property damage settlement final, starting a six-month
deadline for filing claims, said plaintiffs' attorney Joe Rice of Mount
Pleasant, South Carolina.
BP PLC wanted the
court to consider whether people and businesses seeking payments under the
settlement included some who haven't actually suffered any injury related to
the spill.
A district court and
an appeals court ruled that, under the settlement BP agreed to, businesses do
not have to prove they were directly harmed by the spill to collect money --
only that they made less money in the three to eight months after the spill
than in a comparable pre-spill period.
BP's Macondo well
blew up on April 20, 2010, killing 11 men. An estimated 103 million to 176
million gallons of oil spewed into the Gulf of Mexico before the mile-deep well
was capped July 15, 2010. Lawyers for BP and the government agree that 34
million gallons was captured before it could pollute coastal marshes and
fishing grounds.
"Today's ruling
is a huge victory for the Gulf, and should finally put to rest BP's two-year
attack on its own settlement," lead plaintiffs' attorneys Stephen J.
Herman and James P. Roy said in an emailed statement.
The settlement
doesn't have a cap, but BP initially estimated that it would pay roughly $7.8
billion to resolve the claims. The company said it can no longer give a
reliable estimate for total cost. The company, which made separate settlements
for medical claims and seafood-related business claims, has paid more than $13
billion in claims by individuals, businesses and government entities and
another $14 billion-plus on response and cleanup, according to its oil spill
website.
BP remains concerned
"that the program has made awards to claimants that suffered no injury
from the spill -- and that the lawyers for these claimants have unjustly
profited as a result," BP spokesman Goeff Morrell said in an emailed
statement.
He added, "We
will therefore continue to advocate for the investigation of suspicious or
implausible claims and to fight fraud where it is uncovered."
The 5th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals did get the method for calculating losses changed after BP
argued that claims administrator Patrick Juneau wasn't correctly matching
business's revenues and expenses. The company has been trying to oust Juneau.
U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier rejected its claims but BP went to the 5th
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
A third-party audit
of the settlement program, made public in November, found that it correctly
processed 99.5 percent of claims. Chicago-based McGladrey LLP described the
program as "well-designed and appropriate."
The deadline for
medical claims is Feb. 12, 2015, according to the federal district court claims
website. That for seafood-related businesses is past.
__________________________________________________
Supreme
Court tells BP to pay up, rejects appeal of spill settlement
The US Supreme Court
on Monday rejected BP’s challenge to a settlement agreement over the 2010 Gulf
of Mexico oil spill, which the oil giant said allowed certain businesses to get
payouts despite being unable to trace their losses to the disaster.
The court’s refusal
to hear BP’s appeal means the London-based company will have to make the
payments as it continues to deal with the aftermath of the 20 April 2010
explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and rupture of BP’s Macondo oil
well.
BP signed a
settlement agreement in 2012 to compensate spill claimants, but has since
argued that the agreement has been interpreted improperly, forcing it to pay
businesses that could not show damages.
The court’s unsigned
order is the latest setback to BP, which is trying to limit payments over the
disaster, which killed 11 people and triggered the largest US offshore oil
spill.
So far, BP has paid
$2.3bn in so-called business economic loss claims out of $4.25bn in total
compensation to individuals and businesses, according to statistics maintained
by Patrick Juneau, the administrator appointed by the courts to handle claims.
BP has estimated it
will pay $9.7bn to plaintiffs represented by the so-called plaintiffs’ steering
committee, but said last month that this sum could grow significantly.
The settlement process is separate from other court proceedings
relating to the spill, including environmental and criminal penalties. BP has
put aside $43bn to resolve all claims.
Supreme Court tells BP to pay up, despite appeal
June
9, 2014
BP asserts that some businesses are claiming payments unrelated
to the oil spill.
The U.S.
Supreme Court ruled on Monday that BP BP -2.78% ,
the British oil giant responsible for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil
spill, must make payments from a fund established after
the disaster, despite a pending appeal.
The
justices left in place a lower court’s refusal to stop payments while BP
appeals a decision by a lower court that businesses don’t have to prove they
were directly impacted by the oil spill to claim compensation.
The
order, which was just one sentence long, said, “The application to recall and
stay the mandate of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
presented to Justice Scalia and by him referred to the Court is denied.” The
case, meanwhile, is called Exploration v. Lake Eugenie Land, 13A1177.
BP,
however, asserts that some businesses are
claiming payments unrelated to the oil spill.
According
to Geoff Morrell, a BP spokesman, “BP looks forward to pursuing review by the
US Supreme Court of the Fifth Circuit’s decisions relating to the compensation
of claims with no apparent connection to the spill.” He added: “The company
continues to believe that the lifting of the injunction suspending the payment
of business economic loss claims will allow hundreds of millions of dollars to
be irretrievably scattered to claimants whose losses were not plausibly caused
by the Deepwater Horizon accident.”
The head
lawyers for the spill victims said in a statement to Bloomberg: “We’re
pleased that this denial of BP’s request for a stay will allow businesses to
continue to receive the compensation they’re rightly entitled to according to
the objective, transparent formulas agreed to by BP.”
The
Supreme Court will decide later in 2014 when to take up BP’s appeal over the
disputed payments.
In 2012,
the initial cost of payments was expected to be about $7.8 billion. BP says
that a claims administrator’s misinterpretation is responsible for
bumping the price to the current $9.2 billion figure.
