BP Accused by Victims of Racketeering Law Violation
Jan. 25 (Bloomberg) -- BP Plc was accused by oil-spill victims’ lawyers of breaking civil racketeering law by engaging in acts that led to the worst such disaster in U.S. history.
“BP engaged in a pattern of fraudulent conduct directed at regulators from the inception of the Macondo project, continuing through and after the spill and to this day,” victims’ lawyers Stephen Herman and James Roy, said yesterday in a court filing in New Orleans. “BP’s fraudulent actions and omissions were part of a broader pattern of unlawful conduct that it has employed over the years to place profits over safety.”
Herman and Roy are liaison counsel for a committee representing plaintiffs in more than 400 lawsuits over personal and economic injuries caused by last April’s explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig off the Louisiana coast.
The rig, owned by a unit of Transocean Ltd., was drilling the well, named Macondo, for BP at the time of the blast. BP is the only company named as a defendant in the spill victims’ master civil complaint under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, originally aimed at organized crime.
Daren Beaudo, a BP spokesman, declined to comment on the filing.
BP’s own report into the Deepwater Horizon disaster placed much of the blame on its contractors, including rig owner Transocean and Halliburton Energy Services, which provided cementing services for the well. BP says cost considerations don’t compromise safety in company operations.
Feinberg Fund ‘Deficiencies’
In another development yesterday, Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood asked the judge overseeing oil-spill litigation against London-based BP to take an oversight role to “correct deficiencies” in the $20 billion spill-claims fund run by Kenneth Feinberg.
Feinberg has been criticized by spill victims’ lawyers for his administration of the claims process through which BP has said it would pay “all legitimate claims” filed by people and businesses.
Critics contend Feinberg has delayed or denied claims without adequate explanation and established protocols that encourage cash-strapped claimants to accept small, quick payments to avoid years of litigation.
“It is the state’s position that this court has jurisdiction over the Gulf Coast Claims Facility, including its administrator Kenneth Feinberg,” Hood said in papers in the court in New Orleans...
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