{"id":75581,"date":"2013-10-03T11:48:59","date_gmt":"2013-10-03T10:48:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/bp-stops-oil-spill-payouts-after-court-dispute-win\/75581\/"},"modified":"2013-10-03T13:33:43","modified_gmt":"2013-10-03T12:33:43","slug":"bp-stops-oil-spill-payouts-after-court-dispute-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/latest-news\/bp-stops-oil-spill-payouts-after-court-dispute-win\/","title":{"rendered":"BP stops oil spill payouts after court dispute win"},"content":{"rendered":"
BP will stop paying some damage claims under the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill settlement, after an appeals court agreed that the oil giant may be covering \u2018fictitious’ payments to businesses.<\/div>\n

On Wednesday, a split 2-1 jury of the 5th US Circuit Court of
\nAppeals in New Orleans said the administrator of the payoff
\nprogram was approving millions of dollars of payment based on
\nwhat BP called a flawed interpretation of the settlement deal
\nreached last year.<\/p>\n

It ordered US District Judge Carl Barbier, who in March had
\napproved administrator Patrick Juneau’s damage evaluation
\nmethods, to reconsider his decision and make sure that the claims
\ncovered are legitimate. The judge was also told to bar payment of
\ncertain claims until the review is over.<\/p>\n

The appeals judges however upheld another Barvier ruling, which
\nin April dismissed BP’s lawsuit against Juneau.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis decision throws a huge monkey wrench into the settlement
\nand it could well save BP hundreds of millions in settlement
\npayments,\u201d<\/i> Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of
\nRichmond specializing in the federal judiciary, told Bloomberg.
\n\u201cIt’s going to create a real mess.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

The 2012 settlement, which BP reached with most private
\nplaintiffs, resolved economic-loss claims from many businesses
\nand property owners affected by the spill. Under the accord
\nclaims payments are primarily based on plaintiffs’ own accounting
\nduring the periods before and after the disaster. Businesses
\ndidn’t have to prove direct impact or a link to it, with the
\nassumption being that they suffered because the spill affected
\nentire region’s economy.<\/p>\n

BP said Juneau’s interpretation of the terms led to his paying
\n\u201cbaseless awards\u201d that weren’t contemplated in the agreement. The
\nappeals court agreed with the arguments.<\/p>\n

“There is no need to secure peace with those with whom one is
\nnot at war,”<\/i> Judge Edith Clement wrote in the decision.<\/p>\n

“The district court had no authority to approve the settlement
\nof a class that included members that had not sustained losses at
\nall, or had sustained losses unrelated to the oil spill, as BP
\nalleges,”<\/i> she added. “If the administrator is interpreting
\nthe settlement to include such claimants, the settlement is
\nunlawful.”<\/i><\/p>\n

Judge James Dennis wrote a partial dissent, largely disagreeing
\nwith Clement and Judge Leslie Southwick, the second jury member
\nsiding with BP.<\/p>\n

“Because BP has not satisfied its heavy burden of showing that
\na change in circumstances or law warranted the modifications it
\nsought, the district court correctly affirmed the administrator’s
\ndecision rejecting BP’s argument and actions to modify the
\nagreement,”<\/i> Dennis wrote.<\/p>\n

The settlement does not have a cap, but BP initially valued its
\ncost at $7.8 billion. The company later increased its estimate to
\n$9.6 billion, citing the interpretation by the claims
\nadministrator. As of Wednesday, about $3.69 billion has been paid
\nout, according to Juneau’s claims website.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a second phase of a trial before Barbier began on
\nMonday to determine the size of the spill and BP’s efforts to
\ncontain it.<\/p>\n

The explosion at the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in April 2010
\nand rupture of BP’s Macondo oil well killed 11 people and caused
\nthe worst-ever US offshore oil spill. BP has already spent more
\nthan $42 billion to cover clean-up costs, fines and compensations
\nrelated to the spill.<\/p>\n

Copyright: RT<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BP will stop paying some damage claims under the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill settlement, after an appeals court agreed that the oil giant may be covering \u2018fictitious’ payments to businesses. On Wednesday, a split 2-1 jury of the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans said the administrator of the payoff […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":75582,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-75581","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}