BP and drilling partners sued over spill damage

Units of BP Plc and four other companies were sued by the Obama administration over allegations they violated environmental laws in the largest offshore oil spill in US history.

The lawsuit, filed yesterday in federal court in New Orleans, is the first brought by the United States over the oil spill caused by the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig in April. The Justice Department’s civil investigation is continuing, as is a probe of potential criminal violations.

The lawsuit seeks damages under the Clean Water Act and a declaration that four of the defendants are liable under the Oil Pollution Act for all removal costs and damages caused by the oil spill, including damages to the environment, according to a Justice Department statement. The lawsuit doesn’t ask for a specified amount of damages.

“The US has sustained, and will continue to sustain significant costs and damages,” government lawyers said in the complaint. The US “seeks in this action the imposition of Clean Water Act civil penalties for each barrel of oil that the defendants discharged into the Gulf of Mexico.”

The Clean Water Act authorises the US to seek civil penalties of $1,100 for each barrel of oil spilled, or in certain circumstances, as much as $4,300 a barrel from the companies involved, government lawyers said in a September filing with court in New Orleans..

‘Very expensive’
The clean water law penalties and natural resource damage claims expose BP to billions of dollars in potential damages, said Philadelphia attorney Fred Kuffler, an expert in marine pollution litigation who isn’t involved in the case.

“This is going to be a very expensive piece of litigation,” Kuffler said in an interview. “Somewhere along the line, BP is going to decide, ‘We need to make a deal with the government.’”

“We intend to prove that these violations caused or contributed to this massive oil spill, and that the defendants are therefore responsible — under the Oil Pollution Act — for government removal costs, economic losses, and environmental damages,” Attorney General Eric Holder said.