BP PLC chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg said the settlement reflected the company’s commitment to restoring the Gulf of Mexico economically and environmentally, and provided the company with closure going forward.
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Reuters reported that BP’s shares on the London and New York stock exchange increased 5% on the news, as the agreement clarifies the company’s future liabilities which calms investors. It comes ahead of an expected ruling from a United States federal judge on how much BP owed in Clean Water Act (CWA) penalties following the disaster.
Those are the highest totals ever for those federal penalties, said David Uhlmann, ex- chief of the Justice Department’s Environmental Crimes Section and an environmental law professor at the University of Michigan.
The disaster struck on 20 April, 2010, when a deep sea well suffered a blowout that resulted in flames engulfing the Deepwater Horizon platform.
The criminal and civil penalties BP has agreed to pay are not tax-deductible, but restitution and other business expenses often are.
The deal would, besides the federal government, also include the states of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, as also over 400 local government entities along the coast that had argued the spill had ruined tourist seasons, crippled the seafood industry and dried up sales tax revenue.
September 4, 2014, JUDGE FINDS BP BEARS MOST OF THE BLAME: Barbier finds BP “grossly negligent” for its role in the oil spill. It remains unclear how much BP will end up paying under a 2012 settlement with individuals and businesses claiming spill-related losses.
This isn’t even to mention the thousands of outstanding civil claims against BP that are not covered by the settlement.
The federal government and Gulf Coast states have reached an .7 billion settlement agreement with the oil company BP for the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Louisiana is the state that gets the biggest share of the money – nearly $7 billion.
Under the the plan, BP will pay about $7.1 billion (£4.6 billion) to the U.S. and the five gulf states to compensate for damage to natural resources. As part of the agreement in principle, Florida will receive at least $3.25 billion.
The environmental and economic damages Alabama experienced were significant. “Today, through extensive coordination with the Attorney General’s office and the State’s coastal authorities, we’ve made good on that promise”, Jindal said. Both Callaway and Collier say there is more work to be done to make sure the money finds its way to the places it needs to go.
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The remaining funds will be distributed over the next 17 years.
