For those who may be wondering what legal action may result against BP (don't call them British Petroleum!), we have only to compare the greatest environmental catastrophe in history with the greatest industrial catastrophe in history - the release of over 40 tons of poison gas in Bhopal, India in 1984, resulting in the deaths of 15,000 and exposure of half a million others to unknown future hazards. The gas resulted in a 300% increase in stillbirths and paralysis or blindness to an unknown number of children. Permanent injuries numbered between 100,000 and 200,000 people, according to various estimates.
The Union Carbide plant in Bhopal was shown to have employed numerous cost-cutting measures which were judged to have contributed to the leak, as well as negligence on the part of UC management. The company, which is now a subsidiary of Dow Chemical, eventually paid out about 500 million dollars in settlement, but as much as 390 tons of toxic chemicals are still leaking into the environment as this is written.
Last week, after twenty-five years, we learned the verdict in the criminal trial of eight Union Carbide management personnel including its CEO, Warren Anderson. Hold your breath. Two years in jail and $2100 fine. One of the eight defendants is dead and the rest are not available for imprisonment in India. So much for justice.
The resemblance between Union Carbide and BP is striking. Both cut corners on safety in the interests of increased profits. Both spun wildly optimistic estimates of the extent of damage and both declared that safety was the most important item on the corporate agenda. Both paid out a lot of money - BP agreed to establish a twenty billion-dollar fund to reimburse displaced workers.
Everybody knows that sooner or later there will be some kind of criminal prosecution against BP. But if found guilty, can we expect a verdict like the one against Union Carbide?
When a corporation is fined, the money doesn't come out of the pockets of the corporate officers except in the case of lower share value if the fine is big enough. Despite the Supreme Court's decision that a corporation is a person, this kind of person doesn't feel pain - or anything else. The corporate person can't contemplate the world through a barred window, nor can he (she? it?) be deprived of a house, a car or a yacht. It (he? she?)can try to make up the fines in other ways, some legitimate and some not or, in extreme cases, she (it? he?) can cut stock dividends, which passes along the pain to pension funds, stockholders and others who trusted that the corporation would make them some serious money. Accepting responsibility is only OK providing it doesn't mean spending time cracking rocks.
The truth is simple: You can't really hurt a corporation. At worst, the corporation declares bankruptcy, the executives award themselves golden parachutes and somebody else gets stuck with the losses. Look at what happened with the energy bubble, the dot-com bubble, the S&L bubble and the present shambles we call our financial industry.
Jail? You can't put a corporation in jail. You can find corporate officers guilty of killing 15,000 people and fine them a couple of thousand bucks and sentence them to a couple of years in the cooler, but that's about it. Does anybody really think we'll put any of the big wigs of BP in jail for merely spoiling a generous chunk of the United States and destroying the livings of a hundred thousand or so people?
Beyond Pretense. Beyond Principles. Beyond Prosecution.