Scientists, U.S. Coast Guard sailors and thousands of volunteers have come to the coast of the Gulf of Mexico in a massive effort to clean up the oil gushing from an offshore BP oil well that officials now fear could hit the Louisiana shoreline later this week.
Lawyers, too, have rushed to the coast.
As many as 70 lawsuits have been filed against BP PLC BP-N, as well as Swiss-based Transocean Ltd., which owned the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, and Halliburton Energy Services Inc., which also worked on the well. Before a Congressional hearing Monday, executives from all three companies pointed blame at each other.
In addition to lawsuits from families of workers killed or injured in the April 20 explosion that sunk the oil rig, class-action lawsuits have been filed on behalf of fishermen, oystermen, shrimpers, crabbers, seafood wholesalers and processors, beachfront condo owners and sport-fishing boat operators. Some BP shareholders have launched a lawsuit alleging BP directors failed to improve safety procedures after previous accidents.
BP, which like the other companies involved has said it would not comment on litigation, has pledged to pay for the cleanup and says it has already spent $350-million (U.S.) on the effort as it tries to cap the gushing well thousands of metres below the surface.
“We will absolutely take responsibility for cleaning this up,” BP CEO Tony Hayward told CNN, adding that the company would offer compensation to those affected. “We will honour all legitimate claims.”
Analysts estimate the final bill for the cleanup and legal fallout could be in the tens of billions of dollars. It’s a legal mess to rival the actual mess on the waters of the Gulf. And many have pointed out that it echoes the 20-year legal fight that erupted after the Exxon Valdez oil-tanker spill sloshed millions of litres of crude onto Alaska’s coast in 1989.
Brad Marten, a leading U.S. environmental lawyer in Seattle who represented the state of Alaska in the Exxon Valdez case, said the class actions are just one piece of what promises to be an extremely complicated legal battle, possibly more complex than the Exxon Valdez case.
For example, the U.S. federal government could file a number of civil claims – as well as criminal prosecutions – on behalf of different government agencies, including the Coast Guard, the National Oceanic and Air Administration and the Department of the Interior.
In the Exxon Valdez case, the oil company agreed to pay close to $1-billion for what are known as natural resource damages, to compensate for the destruction of wildlife or other resources. He said this could end up a major factor in the BP case.
“Natural resource damages are basically injury to the critters,” said Mr. Marten, who rushed to Alaska as soon as he got word of the spill. “ … In Alaska, they were kind of cute. They were otters and whales and birds and eagles. So they were very charismatic. I’m not sure we quite have that in the Gulf, but I am sure people are fond of their shore birds and such there as well.”
Clean-up crews comb the beach for tar balls washed on shore on Dauphin Island, Ala., on Monday.— REUTERS
State and city governments may also make claims. Meanwhile, competing class action lawyers will jostle over how their cases are grouped together, where they are heard and which lawyers take the lead. Insurance companies may also be dragged into court.
Plus, there might be litigation between the companies involved over who pays out what, Mr. Marten said: “It gets really, really complicated, really fast.”
