On September 4th, Federal Judge Carl J. Barbier ruled that BP’s conduct was “reckless” and that the company “acted with conscious disregard of known risks” in causing the April 20th 2010 explosion that occurred onboard the Deepwater Horizon, according to the New York Times. That terrible tragedy ultimately killed 11 workers, injured 16 others and sent millions of barrels of oil spilling directly into the Gulf of Mexico in what is the worst environmental disaster to occur on U.S. soil to date.
While BP has reportedly already spent some $28 billion paying damage claims and funding clean up operations, the company could face an additional $18 billion in new civil penalties under the Clean Water Act, according to Judge Barbier.
Naturally, BP “strongly disagrees with the decision” and plans on appealing to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.
The ruling comes after years of denial on the part of BP that the company was the chief culprit for what went wrong that day. Judge Barbier emphatically declared otherwise.
BP’s Request to Recoup Oil Spill Over-payments Denied
Then, just 20 days later on September 24th, Judge Barbier denied BP’s request to recoup oil spill over-payments, as reported in the New York Times. Lawyers for BP had claimed that the accounting methods used to calculate the claims payments were far too generous, essentially accusing the claimants of fraud.
The Judge countered by stating in his ruling that the earlier claims “were paid under the settlement’s terms as it was interpreted by the claims administrator and the court at that time.”
Judge Barbier added, “The fact that the decision and the interpretation were later reversed does not equate to fraud or anything close to it by these claimants.”
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