Appeals court gives go-ahead to BP investor suit over 2006 Alaska oil spills
February 14, 2014
By Lisa Demer, Anchorage Daily News
Feb. 14--An appeals court ruling Thursday rekindles a shareholder lawsuit that alleges BP executives intentionally made false or misleading statements about the condition of North Slope pipelines before two spills in 2006.
The investors sued BP and top executives in 2008, asserting that public statements after the first spill were intentionally misleading as were statements in BP annual reports asserting the company was in compliance with environmental laws and that touted its "environmental best practices."
In March 2006, a leak from corroded pipe spilled more than 200,000 gallons of oil onto the tundra -- the biggest spill ever on Alaska's North Slope. That August, there was a smaller leak from a second line. Oil production at Prudhoe Bay was shut down during repairs. Investors say the shutdown caused a 4 percent drop in BP's stock price.
At an April 25, 2006 press conference, then-BP chief executive officer John Browne contended the first spill occurred "in spite of the fact that we have both world class corrosion monitoring and leak detection systems, both being applied within regulations set by the Alaskan authorities."
That was proven to be untrue, the appeals court said, though the investors haven't yet shown that Browne knew it at the time
The Department of Justice and the state of Alaska also sued over the 2006 spills. In 2011 BP paid a $25 million fine to settle the federal lawsuit asserting water and air pollution violations, and it agreed to set up an inspection and corrosion-monitoring system estimated to cost $60 million. The state, which sued over lost revenue from oil production shortfalls, in 2012 won $255 million from BP, most of it through binding arbitration.
Reach Lisa Demer at ldemer@adn.com or 257-4390.
http://www.adn.com/2014/02/13/3324983/appeals-court-gives-go-ahead-to.html
Link provided by Kavika:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/business/09bp.html?pagewanted=all...
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BP is going to try its big oil double speak to get out of this one. Just as they did with the fiasco of the Deep Water Horizon blow out.
I'm still mad about the Gulf spill...
Every oil company on the north slope has about 1,000 spills per year. While the 2006 spills were huge, the amount of oil lost in the smaller spills, and those careless "oops" spills is enough to feed a small refinery. They should all be tarred and feathered.
BP has poisoned every environment they have drilled in and when they ruin the ecology they do a minimum amount to mitigate the damage then leave it for the taxpayers to clean up. BP should be banned from working anywhere in the U.S..
Here is an interesting article on BP and their spills and explosions.
I agree with you Larry. They make a lot of promises, but the taxpayer ends up on the short end of the stick.
Great article Kavika, you might want to take a look at the Department of Justice article I linked to above on Deepwater Horizon. Hope you don't mind I added your link to the article.
I did Larry, another example of the lying, cheating and attempted cover up. They will do anything to get out of the damages that they cause.
One of the things I have been waiting for about the Deepwater Horizon to come out is that the BP(blow out preventer) that was on the well when the blow out happened had it been tested on land would not have worked as it was supposed to. It was piped wrong among other things and couldn't operate as designed.
That is interesting, I wasn't aware of that Larry.
Not only that, but they wouldn't pay for the super dooper mud that would have prevented the blowout to begin with. There is an additive they add to drilling mud, that makes it much heavier.
I have friends in the oil business...
Dowser, I think that I remember a news report on that.
That's right. It came out "officially" that they wouldn't pay for the more expensive mud that would have held the oil down in the ground. But my buddies that work in the oil patch have friends at Schlumberger that told me about it before it was general knowledge.
ARGHH!
It's just like the ongoing lies they (BP) have been telling about how much of the Corexit they used at the onset and continue to use even today. In spite of being told by the government to cease a desist the use of Corexit .