Topics: BP Managers Said to Face U.S. Review for Manslaughter Charges, BP Managers Said to Face U.S. Review for Manslaughter Charges, BP claims processing CEO to raise money for Gov. Bobby Jindal, Are the New Subsea Well Containment Companies Ready? Maybe., April 20 deadline for suing Transocean puts oil spill claimants in a quandary, Women of the Storm descending on Capitol Hill to plead for coastal restoration money, BP faces revolt on £8m Tony Hayward pay, BP share swap faces Standard challenge
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BP Managers Said to Face U.S. Review for Manslaughter Charges, BP Managers Said to Face U.S. Review for Manslaughter Charges, BP claims processing CEO to raise money for Gov. Bobby Jindal, Are the New Subsea Well Containment Companies Ready? Maybe., April 20 deadline for suing Transocean puts oil spill claimants in a quandary, Women of the Storm descending on Capitol Hill to plead for coastal restoration money, BP faces revolt on £8m Tony Hayward pay, BP share swap faces Standard challenge
This topic was discussed before in Lorinda Pike's excellent diary, DBP Facing Manslaughter Charges? but I noticed from reading the Bloomberg story how the DOJ is coming at BP every legal way possible to dress their execs in prison orange.
BP rarely misses an opportunity to demonstrate how deserving their executive suite is of this type of DOJ scrutiny. BOP has spent years making a business practice of flaunting laws and bloating its bottom line at the expense of the safety of its workers and the environment. The government's typical response to BP's repeated flaunting of the law has always been to act like a domestic abuse victim who believes the batterer's empty promises that it won't happen again.
Basically, this time it appears as though DOJ is coming at the criminal prosecution from a number of angles. Previously, there was an unnamed source who said DOJ was taking even taking a look at RICO. We've also heard about the stock manipulation and perjury investigations previously. The news that DOJ is adding to its arsenal by seriously considering manslaughter and seaman's manslaughter is a very strong signal that they are badly wanting to send some people to jail. Let's hope that BP hasn't bought enough political influence to hamper DOJ zeal.
If the DOJ is successful in putting any BP execs behind bars it might provide some pause for corporate executives who choose to put profit before safety.
BP Managers Said to Face U.S. Review for Manslaughter Charges
Federal prosecutors are considering whether to pursue manslaughter charges against BP Plc (BP/) managers for decisions made before the Gulf of Mexico oil well explosion last year that killed 11 workers and caused the biggest offshore spill in U.S. history, according to three people familiar with the matter.
U.S. investigators also are examining statements made by leaders of the companies involved in the spill -- including former BP Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward -- during congressional hearings last year to determine whether their testimony was at odds with what they knew, one of the people said. All three spoke on condition they not be named because they weren’t authorized to discuss the case publicly.
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The Justice Department in June said it opened criminal and civil investigations into the spill, which began after an April 20 explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig that London-based BP leased from Transocean Ltd. (RIG), of Vernier, Switzerland. The department filed a civil suit against BP in December and hasn’t filed criminal charges. It’s continuing to investigate.
Examining Charges
Authorities are examining actions by BP managers who worked both on the rig and onshore to determine whether they should be charged in connection with the workers’ deaths, according to the people. Prosecutors have been looking at charges of involuntary manslaughter or seaman’s manslaughter, which carries a more serious penalty of up to 10 years.
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The manslaughter investigation is focusing on decisions by BP managers leading up to the explosion that may have sacrificed safety in favor of speed and cost savings, one of the people said.
David Uhlmann, a former chief of the Justice Department’s environmental crimes section, said he expected that companies involved in the spill would be charged with seaman’s manslaughter. Making a case against individual managers would be more difficult, he said.
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The investigation is being conducted by a task force within the Justice Department’s criminal division following a move this month to consolidate management of the probe. It’s being run by John Buretta, a senior counsel in the criminal division. Until then, the environment and natural resources division was running the bulk of the criminal case.
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Before the change, the criminal division had been focusing on whether BP made misleading statements after the spill and company executives traded stock based on insider information, two people familiar with the matter said. The environment division’s criminal lawyers had been examining violations of environmental laws, along with manslaughter, the people said.
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19th-century law may come into play in BP case
The DOJ would have a lower burden of proof for prosecution under the Clean Water Act as well as the Seaman's Manslaughter Statute than they would for other types of manslaughter charges.
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The burden of proof to win a conviction of seaman's manslaughter — which is based on a law from the 1830s - is lower than for regular manslaughter. The sentence could be up to 10 years in prison.
It has been reported since early in the spill investigation that companies involved could face criminal charges under the Clean Water Act.
That law also exposes individuals to criminal liability - even if they were not directly involved or aware of an incident - under the "responsible corporate officer doctrine" that has developed through many years of case law.
Alaska backhoe case
In one of the best-known cases, a supervisor of an Alaskan railroad company spent six months in jail when a backhoe operator ruptured a pipeline that spilled oil into a river. The supervisor was at home and off duty at the time of the accident, but prosecutors only needed to convince a jury he was guilty of civil negligence - failure to provide the proper care an ordinary person would to avoid the accident.
If prosecutors seek other charges, they might base the allegations on the Seaman's Manslaughter Statute, written in response to deadly steamboat accidents in the early 1800s. Following the death of Sen. Josiah Johnston, a Louisiana Democrat who was killed when the steamboat Lioness exploded on the Red River in Louisiana in May 1833, President Andrew Jackson called for tougher steamboat safety laws.
A law eventually passed in 1838 aimed to encourage vigilance among steamboat crews by attaching criminal liability for fatal accidents.
But fatalities continued, so the law was updated in 1852 to require safety equipment on ships including lifeboats, life preservers and firefighting gear. This improved safety and formed the foundation for the U.S. Coast Guard inspection system.
Bar is low for proof
Because of the law's original intent of boosting attentiveness by steamboat crews, the bar for convictions under the Seaman's Manslaughter Statute is relatively low. It only requires proof of simple negligence, said Gregory Linsin, a former prosecutor with the Department of Justice Environmental Crimes Section who is now a partner with Blank Rome in Washington.
"Simple negligence is a failure to exercise the standard of care that a reasonably prudent person would exercise under the circumstances," Linsin said.
Other manslaughter statutes, typically in state law, "generally require proof of gross negligence, which is a higher burden of proof involving recklessness or a willful disregard for a known risk," he said.
But prosecutors seldom bring criminal charges in oil spills.
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John Buretta, an assistant U.S. attorney known for investigating organized crime, was tapped to lead the team earlier this month, replacing Howard Stewart, a prosecutor in the Environmental Crimes Section.
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BP claims processing CEO to raise money for Gov. Bobby Jindal
The state Louisiana is suing the Gulf Coast Claims Facility but that didn't stop Bobby Jindall from accepting a BP GCCF contractor's largesse. Bobby wasn't planning on sharing this info with the press but someone spoiled all his fun by tattling to the Times-Picayune.
BATON ROUGE -- The head of a Hammond-based firm that is handling oil spill claims processing for BP is hosting the latest fund-raising event for Gov. Bobby Jindal.
Gov. Bobby Jindal will benefit from a fund-raiser hosted by a man who has handled claims on behalf of BP, and later the Gulf Coast Claims Facility.
The $1,000 a plate cocktail reception -- the "host" level costs $5,000 -- is being held Tuesday at the offices of Worley Catastrophe Response, and hosted by the company's chief executive, Mike Worley.
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Jindal's office has a policy of not disclosing who hosts the fund-raising events he attends. A copy of the invitation was obtained by The Times-Picayune.
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"Gov. Jindal is essentially taking money from somebody who works for BP at the same time he's supposed to be holding BP accountable," Franck [Louisiana Democratic Party spokesman] said.
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Bob Cavnar (eljefebob), author of the excellent Disaster on the Horizon, points out that the dismal failure of oil spill technology when the Macondo blew has encouraged industry to use the same failed model for containment technology.
Are the New Subsea Well Containment Companies Ready? Maybe.
Besides the obvious weaknesses in subsea BOPs, and hence well control, I am concerned about having competing groups doing subsea containment. Helix setting up a for-profit company has already siphoned off independent operator's money, weakening both efforts, especially in research and development. Has this happened before? Sure it has, right after major oil companies formed the Marine Spill Response Corporation (MSRC) in response to spill cleanup requirements mandated in 1990's Oil Polution Act, which was enacted after the Exxon Valdez disaster. The non-profit consortium was established to improve oil clean up technology and capability. In 1992, a for-profit competitor was formed called the National Response Corporation (NRC), which began cutting prices for oil spill cleanup. The result? MSRC members were siphoned off to the NRC, weakening the MSRC. Price competition was set up, and I'll give you one guess which service was cut to compete...yes, that's right, research and development. That's how you get 1970's surface clean up technology applied to a deepwater blowout in 2010, and the tragic results.
If we fail to learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it. Having 2 well containment companies, one for the majors and one for the independents, weakens both efforts. Since Helix is a for-profit corporation, it will compete on price to get more members. If (when) one of those operators has a blowout and runs out of money (or hits their statutory $75 million liability cap for clean up), will the other companies step in? Will the majors step in? No one will know until it happens; once again, we have set up the same ad hoc environment that existed at the time of the BP blowout.
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Cleaning Up BP's Mess in the Gulf of Mexico | David Pettit's Blog | Switchboard, from NRDC
The National Resources Defense Council makes a case for more public participation in the NRDA process. It's a hideously complex legal tangle that gives the polluter many more rights than the public who are supposed to be quiet little children and trust that No Oil At All (NOAA) will look after the environment.
How will BP be forced to clean up the mess it caused in the Gulf of Mexico? There is a process created for oil spills by the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 called a natural resource damages assessment, or “NRDA,” usually spoken as “nerd-a” by NRDA nerds. There is a good summary of the NRDA process as carried out by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) here. The bottom line is that BP will pay to investigate and restore the damage it did.
In the BP case, the NRDA process is overseen by federal and state natural resource trustees. NOAA is leading this effort for the federal government, and each of the five affected Gulf states has appointed a lead trustee. BP has also been invited to participate in the NRDA process, as the law allows.
The theory behind the NRDA process is simple but the process itself is complex, often becoming constrained by the threat of litigation at its end. First is the preliminary assessment stage, described by NOAA as: “Natural resource trustees determine whether injury to public trust resources has occurred.” This sounds simple but can take years; for example, for marine mammals with long breeding and maturation cycles, it can take 20 years or more to determining whether the oil spill has had an effect.
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Why does BP care about all this? Because they have to pay for it. And if BP disagrees with what the trustees ask it to do, BP can take them to federal court.
One thing notably absent from this process is the opportunity for public participation. The NOAA regulations only require one public meeting, to take comments on the trustees’ proposed restoration plan. This is pretty late in the process. NRDC is working with NOAA and at the grassroots level to have NOAA allow more and meaningful public input into all three stages of the NRDA process. If there is litigation, it is unclear whether NRDC or other groups could become parties to the lawsuit.
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Public confidence in the integrity and safety of new oil operations is in short supply right now. A rigorous, well-thought out NRDA process for the BP spill, with adequate public participation and a reopener clause that is not a give-away to BP, may help fix that.
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BP loses laptop with private info on 13,000 people - CNN.com
Not content with screwing victims out of legitimate claims, BP has now left 13,000 claim applicants wide open to identity theft. BP claims the computer was disabled by remote control, cold comfort if the sensitive information was already downloaded before they discovered the theft.
BP won't give details of where or when the theft took place claiming it would jeopardize the criminal investigation. h/t Phil S 33
A BP laptop computer containing the private information of about 13,000 individuals who filed oil-related claims after last year's oil spill has been lost, according to the oil giant.
The laptop contained names, addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth and Social Security numbers for those who filed claims related to last year's Deepwater Horizon spill.
"There is no evidence that the laptop or data was targeted or that anyone's personal data has in fact been compromised or accessed in any way," BP spokesman Tom Mueller said in a written statement. "We have sent written notice to individuals impacted by this event to inform them about the loss of their personal data and to offer them free credit monitoring services to help protect their personal information."
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April 20 deadline for suing Transocean puts oil spill claimants in a quandary
Claimants are facing a looming deadline in making a decision whether to file a lawsuit against Transocean or take their chances with the parsimonious Kenneth Feinberg. The Oil Pollution Act of 1990 does not allow for punitive damages but maritime law does allow for them in lawsuits agains Transocean.
As Louisianians know all too well, first anniversaries of traumatic events are more than emotional milestones: They tend to mark legal deadlines as well.
Such a deadline looms April 20 on the first anniversary of the BP oil spill.
The deadline applies to what appears to be a sideline case involving a BP contractor, Transocean, the owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig that blew up last April 20.
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Plaintiffs lawyers, meanwhile, have already filed more than 350 cases against BP and the other responsible parties. They've all been consolidated into a central case before U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier. The plaintiffs have a chance in the Transocean liability case to draw in thousands of new clients to the larger case.
The opportunity owes to Barbier's approval of a "short form joinder," a three-page document with the most basic information. Whoever signs it is automatically added to the plaintiffs' claims against Transocean, and, Barbier has ruled, to the larger case against all of the defendants. There's no filing fee, and people can file without a lawyer.
The lead plaintiff lawyers say signing the form is the only way for a claimants to be sure they will be able to collect the portion of damages for which Transocean is found liable. As of last week, some 27,000 people had signed up.
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Punitive damages aren't available under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, the post-Exxon Valdez law governing many oil spill claims. But they are available under maritime law, which governs the Transocean liability trial that will take place in February 2012.
Herman [one of two lead plaintiff attorneys] and his fellow attorneys say that signing up for the Transocean case does not tie claimants down if they wind up liking Feinberg's offer. They say anyone who settles with Feinberg will sign a release removing them from the Transocean case.
They are endorsed in that view by a group of lawyers hired by the state of Louisiana to advise claimants. The lawyers were hired with money from BP, but the state picks them.
But a separate group of plaintiff attorneys is warning claimants that it won't be so easy to drop out of the court case, and they might have to pay a percentage of their award to the lawyers who filed suit.
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Women of the Storm descending on Capitol Hill to plead for coastal restoration money
Women of the Storm will be going to D.C. to try to pry greatly needed money for Gulf restoration from the hands of Congress whose members would probably prefer putting it in the hands of their large campaign contributors.
Women of the Storm, some 140 of them, will descend on Capitol Hill on Tuesday to plead with members of Congress to pass legislation requiring that 80 percent of the fines collected from BP for the oil spill be directed to the Gulf states for coastal restoration efforts.
Anne Milling, the New Orleanian who founded Women of he Storm after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, said they have broadened their reach to include women from all five Gulf states -- from Texas to Florida -- on their chartered plane to D.C. from Louis Armstrong Airport, which will be wheels up at 7 a.m. Tuesday, and returning home about 12 hours later.
In between, the women will be holding a news conference outside the Senate with EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, who grew up in New Orleans, members of the Louisiana Congressional delegation, and favorite daughters Mary Matalin and Donna Brazile.
Dedicating the penalty money to restoration is that rare issue that has the solid support of both the Louisiana congressional delegation and the Obama administration, and was among the chief recommendations of the national Oil Spill Commission.
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BP faces revolt on £8m Tony Hayward pay
Pirc, a firm which advises institutional investors, is advising shareholders to vote against compensation packages for Tony Hayward, Bob Dudley and other BP execs
An analyst from Pirc particularly criticised the fact that Tony Hayward could get stock worth £8m at today's share price, despite the fact that he left under a cloud following the catastrophic accident that killed 11 men.
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Pirc's report highlight the fact that current chief executive Bob Dudley will get a share award of up to 5.5 times his salary, while two other directors Iain Conn will get potentially four times their base salaries. However the group is most concerned that Mr Hayward and Mr Inglis may end up leaving with huge share packages.
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It said despite the fact that Mr Dudley will not take a bonus, the overall pay packages looked like too much. It urged shareholders to vote against the report at BP's annual meeting, which will take place on April 14.
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BP share swap faces Standard challenge
One of BP's largest investors has developed a sudden distaste for Russian oligarchs now that their greedy dreams of Russian Arctic crude are fading.
STANDARD Life Investments, one of the biggest investors in BP, has said it does not support the company’s decision to proceed with a share swap with Rosneft, the state-owned Russian oil and gas firm.
David Cumming, head of UK equities for the fund manager, told the BBC there no longer seemed to be any point to the deal after the two firms shelved related plans to explore jointly in the Arctic.
Last week an arbitration court in Sweden upheld an injunction blocking the proposed deal with Rosneft, in favour of the Russian partners in TNK-BP. These argued that the deal with Rosneft breached an agreement that BP would seek their approval before entering major new ventures in Russia.
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