The AP (6/24) reported, “To a nation frustrated by the Gulf oil spill, BP’s attempts at damage control have sometimes been infuriatingly vague. But from a legal standpoint, that’s exactly the point. With the company facing more than 200 civil lawsuits and the specter of a Justice Department investigation, saying the wrong thing could expose BP to millions of dollars in damages or even criminal charges for its executives.”

The AP (6/23) reported, “A law firm known for shareholder lawsuits on Wednesday said it is investigating whether the agents who ran BP PLC’s employee savings plan violated federal law by buying BP stock. New York-based Milberg LLP, which has sued dozens of companies on behalf of investors in many prominent companies, including scandal-plagued Enron, Worldcom and Tyco, said it is looking into whether the fiduciaries of the BP Employee Savings Plan may have violated the Employee Retirement Income Security Act by buying and holding on to the oil company’s shares ‘when it was imprudent to do so.’”

The Financial Times (6/24, Peel) reports that according to legal experts, a higher proportion of potential applicants to BP’s $20 billion escrow fund are likely to opt out and launch private lawsuits than occurred with the 9/11 victims’ fund. Doug Kysar of Yale Law School, for example, said he thought the found would not be “as attractive a compromise for plaintiffs in this case. There is a business case to be made for plaintiff lawyers to stay out of the fund and instead go to the courts and look for the jackpot verdict.”

Judges’ financial interests, recusals complicate lawsuits. The Los Angeles Times (6/24, Williams) reports Federal judges “in gulf states have been extensively invested in the oil and gas industries for decades, and those interests threaten to create a logjam for the 150-plus lawsuits and legal challenges prompted by the BP spill.” Seven of “the 12 federal judges of the Eastern District of Louisiana already have cited potential conflicts of interest in bowing out of cases brought by fishermen, charter operators, tourist services and families of those killed in the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico.”

New York Comptroller seeks lead plaintiff status in BP litigation. The AP (6/23) reported, “New York Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli has hired outside lawyers in an effort to become the lead plaintiff in a federal class-action lawsuit by investors against BP over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. DiNapoli, as trustee of the state’s $133 billion public employee pension fund, claims the British oil giant misled investors about the safety of its operations.”
In “The Energy Source” blog at Forbes (6/23), Christopher Helman wrote, “Philip Adams, of bond research firm Gimme Credit, took a stab at” estimating BP’s total liability for the spill “in a research note yesterday. He gets to a total of $60.9 billion by breaking up the costs into three ‘buckets.’ The first bucket is the $20 billion” escrow fund, the second “is clean-up and compensation,” and the third “fines and penalties.”

ASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- A U.S. House panel approved legislation Wednesday that would repeal a century-and-a-half-old law that Transocean Ltd. (RIG: 52.04, 0.88, 1.72%) has sought to use to limit its liability in the Gulf oilspill disaster.

The legislation also would make it easier for the families of the 11 Deepwater Horizon oil-rig victims to collect certain financial damages.

The bill would apply to both pending and future cases. The House Judiciary Committee passed the bill on a 16-11 vote, sending the measure to the full House for consideration. Two Republicans joined 14 Democrats in supporting the measure.

In another spill-related matter, the committee voted to authorize the issuing of subpoenas to BP America for documents related to the company’s claims process for victims of the gulf spill. The subpoenas will seek documents regarding the amount of reported claims that have not been paid, and for other documents related to oil-spill claims and processing.

Committee Democrats said the liability bill would offer justice to oil-spill victims and their families, while most Republicans said the bill was too broad, unnecessarily rushed and could have a variety of unintended consequences.

Transocean, the owner and operator of the Deepwater Horizon rig, filed legal papers last month under the Limitation of Liability Act of 1851 to limit its liability to just under $27 million.

Under the act, a vessel owner is liable only for the post-accident value of the vessel and cargo, so long as the owner can show he or she had no knowledge of negligence in the accident. The House bill would repeal this liability law.

BP PLC (BP, BP.LN), which leased the rig, bears most of the liability in the spill disaster.

The House legislation also would allow the families of spill victims to collect non-economic damages, such as damages for pain and suffering and loss of care and companionship. Supporters of the bill say current law only allows families to recover for economic losses such as the loss of the victim’s income and funeral expenses.

In an interesting development, one Democrat, Rep. Mel Watt of North Carolina, sought to amend the bill so that it would not apply retroactively to pending cases involving the current spill. Watt questioned whether imposing the legislation retroactively was constitutional. The proposed amendment sparked verbal sparring between Watt and Rep. John Conyers (D., Mich.), the committee chairman and lead sponsor of the liability legislation. Conyers said Congress has been enacting retroactive bills for a long time “and we’re not going to stop now.”

Watt’s amendment was rejected on a voice vote.

On the subpoena matter, Conyers said the panel was “not getting anywhere” getting certain documents from BP, which made the subpoenas necessary. The panel’s top Republican, Lamar Smith of Texas, also supported the issuance of subpoenas to BP America. Smith said he hoped that in the future BP would provide the committee with documents without the panel having to exercise its subpoena authority.

Copyright © 2009 Dow Jones Newswires

Ken Feinberg is the Chief of the new office, called the Independent Claims Facility, set up to handle damage claims for the BP Oil SPill catastrophy is urging residents of the Gulf and those from out of state that have claims stemming from the BP Oil Spill to come forward and file claims for damages.

Ken Feinberg is pledging to make sure all eligible and legitimate claims will be paid and paid promptly. Mr. Feinberg wants all BP oil spill victims to come forward, file a claim for an emergency payment and then work with the office to come up with a claims program. This statement was made within days of BP agreeing to President Barack Obama’s request for a $20 billion compensation fund last week.

BP Pressed to Set Aside $20 Billion for Oil Spill Costs

WASHINGTON, DC, June 14, 2010 (ENS) – Senate Democrats sent a letter to BP CEO Tony Hayward today calling on the company to set aside $20 billion in a special account to be used to pay for economic damages and cleanup costs of the ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

“We are writing to express our profound concern over the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster and our deep regret for the severe consequences the continued outflow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico is having on our nation and the way of life for millions of Americans,” the letter states. “This tragedy has already taken the lives of 11 men, wounded 17 others, and caused billions of dollars in damages.”

“The oil slick resulting from the spill stretches across 2,500 square miles and has damaged miles of environmentally sensitive beaches and marshes stretching across four states. Although this disaster continues to unfold, it is already very clear we are facing a catastrophe of historic proportions that will take decades to fully rectify,” the senators state.

A controlled burn of spilled oil from the Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, June 9, 2010. (Photo courtesy U.S. Coast Guard)

“While we are pleased that BP has admitted liability for these damages and vowed to provide full remuneration for economic losses and clean-up costs, history has taught us that corporations often fail to live up to their initial promises,” the senators write, reminding BP of fellow oil company ExxonMobile’s avoidance of the costs of the Exxon Valdez spill.

“After the Exxon Valdez tanker spilled more than 11 million gallons of oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound, damages totaled more than $7 billion; although Exxon continued making massive profits after the accident, it fought liability at every step and ultimately paid far less than the billions of dollars worth of damages it had caused many, many years later,” the letter says.

Congress is now gathering information and holding hearings to develop legislation to address the Deepwater Horizon disaster. In both the Senate and the House legislation has been introduced to raise the cap on liability for oil spills from $75 million to $10 billion. The liability could be made retroactive, ensuring that BP is on the hook for the economic damages resulting from the Gulf Coast spill.

In their letter, the senators say a $20 billion account is needed now because while legislative action is forthcoming, the damages from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill are “immediate.”

“In order to ensure BP fully and quickly covers the costs of this disaster, we are calling on BP to immediately establish a special account of $20 billion, administered by an independent trustee, to be used for payment of economic damages and clean-up costs,” the senators write. “Establishment of this account would serve as an act of good faith and as a first step towards ensuring that there will be no delay in payments or attempt to evade responsibility for damages.”

In view of the “urgency of the matter, the senators requested a response to this letter no later than Friday, June 18.

The letter comes as President Barack Obama is on his way to the Gulf Coast, his fourth trip to the area since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded April 20 and sank two days later, leaving the broken wellhead to gush thousands of barrels of oil into the water every day.

Oil still gushes from the containment cap on the broken Deepwater Horizon wellhead, as shown by the image from a camera on a remotely operated vehicle. June 14, 2010. (Image courtesy BP)

A federal oil flow rate task force estimated June 10 that 20,000 to 40,000 barrels of oil per day was flowing from the damaged wellhead before the riser pipe was cut to install the containment cap now capturing some of the leaking oil.

The highest estimate amounts to over two million barrels of oil that have leaked into the Gulf of Mexico, a much higher figure than BP and the government had previously estimated.

The earliest estimates were 1,000 barrels per day. Then, for weeks, BP and the Coast Guard gave a figure of 5,000 barrels per day. The first flow rate task force estimate May 27 was between 12,000 and 25,000 barrels per day.

The President plans to visit Gulfport, Mississippi; Theodore, Alabama; and Pensacola, Florida, to survey the response efforts, visit with gulf residents impacted by the spill, and meet with area officials.

The President will make a statement in Theodore and hold an event with military personnel in Pensacola.

Back in Washington on Tuesday, the President will address the nation regarding the oil spill. On Wednesday he has scheduled a meeting with BP executives.

President Obama has urged BP to set aside a sufficient amount of money to cover all costs, but has not yet named a figure that would satisfy him.

BP America Vice President of Resources Darryl Willis said on June 5 that the company will pay all claims that are “reasonable and necessary.” Other BP officials have repeatedly said the company would pay all “legitimate” claims.

These terms create big loopholes that the company can use in future litigation to avoid payments for cleanup and claims, U.S. Senators Patty Murray of Washington and Robert Menendez of New Jersey told reporters today.

Senator Murray said, these terms are “very hard to define.”

“We saw with the Exxon Valdez spill the company made all kinds of promises,” said Murray. “As soon as the spotlight had gone away and fishermen and families started to go after that money, they came up against big lawyers with all kinds of definitions.”

Shrimp boats acting as Vessels of Opportunity return to Bayou La Batre, Louisiana. These local boat operators are paid to assist with Deepwater Horizon oil spill response by transporting supplies, assisting wildlife rescue and deploying boom. June 12, 2010. (Photo courtesy U.S. Coast Guard)

BP said today that its cost to date amounts to $1.6 billion, including the cost of the spill response, containment, relief well drilling, grants to the Gulf states, claims paid, and federal costs. This includes new grants of $25 million each to the states of Florida, Alabama and Mississippi and the first $60 million in funds for the Louisiana barrier islands construction project.

On June 10, BP announced it grants of $25 million to each of the states of Alabama, Florida, and Mississippi to continue implementation of their area contingency plans.

This $25 million grant is in addition to a previous $25 million block grant that BP announced on May 5 to help accelerate the implementation of the contingency plans, and a $15 million tourism grant announced on May 17.

“This money will be used to ensure we’re aggressive in attacking any part of the spill that comes our way and to provide additional protection for our most environmentally sensitive areas along our coastline,” said Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, a Republican. “This also prevents us from tapping into state money to fight the spill, and I appreciate BP’s timely response to our request.”

“Working in partnership with the state is important to an effective spill response. So we are pleased to make these additional funds available per the governor’s request,” said BP’s Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles.

BP reported Saturday that 49,254 claims have been opened, from which more than $60.2 million have been disbursed. “No claims have been denied to date,” the company says. There are 577 claims adjusters on the ground.

To file a claim, visit www.bp.com/claims or call BP’s helpline at (800) 440-0858. Those who have already pursued the BP claims process and are not satisfied with BP’s resolution can call the Coast Guard at (800) 280-7118

Since June 3, BP has been capturing some oil and gas at the source of the leak using its containment dome technique, which is being executed under the federal government’s direction.

BP oil floating in the Gulf of Mexico one mile south of Perdido Key, Florida. June 12, 2010. (Photo courtesy U.S. Coast Guard)

On June 12, a total of about 15,000 barrels of oil were collected and 32.9 million cubic feet of natural gas were flared. The total volume of oil collected by the LMRP cap system since it began operation is approximately 127,000 barrels. A further approximately 22,000 barrels of oil previously had been collected through use of the Riser Insertion Tube Tool and stored in the Discoverer Enterprise.

Last week, some 115,000 barrels of collected oil were transferred from storage on the Discoverer Enterprise to a barge, which is enroute to a terminal in Mobile, Alabama, where the oil will be moved to a refinery.

Under the direction of National Incident Commander U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, BP engineers continue to refine plans for two more collection systems that will use connections on the blowout preventer capture more of the leaking oil in the near term. Gas and oil flow will be collected on the drill ships Q4000 and Clear Leader.

Larger, heavier vessels that can maintain their position and continue to collect oil in the event of a hurricane are en route to the site of the leak – one coming from the North Sea.

Still, Admiral Allen has said that if a hurricane strikes, the containment system may have to be disconnected, which would again release large amounts of oil into the gulf. Plans to acquire equipment for long-term containment and disposal are being examined by the National Incident Command.

Representatives from the U.S. Coast Guard, BP, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Environmental Protection Agency and other state and partner agencies responding to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill are scheduled to host three open houses Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in various locations.

The open houses will give residents the opportunity to engage one-on-one with experts about the techniques, strategies and materials being used in the spill response.

“We want to keep the local communities informed with the most accurate and timely information we have,” said Coast Guard Capt. Roger Leferriere, Coast Guard unified commander at the Incident Command Post in Houma, Louisiana. “We want to communicate with the public and provide them with first-hand information on the topics that concern them most.”

The open houses will feature experts and representatives from responding agencies who will answer questions and provide visual information on the tools, equipment and strategies that are being used in the response, including booms, burns, sand berms, skimming and dispersants.

Agencies representatives will be available to address concerns about environmental quality, wildlife, safety and resources available to residents. Information will also be available on the Vessels of Opportunity Program, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and volunteer and employment efforts.

Claims representatives will be available for questions or concerns residents might have on the claims process.

The meetings will be held in:

• Cameron Parish: Tuesday, June 15, 2010, 5:30-7:30 pm CDT at the Camp Creole Multi-purpose Center, 184 E. Creole Highway, Creole La. 70632
• St. Bernard: Wednesday, June 16, 2010, 6-8 pm CDT at the Council on Aging, 8201-A West Judge Perez Drive, Chalmette, La. 70043
• St. Mary Parish: Thursday, June 16, 2010, 6-8 pm CDT at the Baldwin Civic Center, 305 Highway 83, Baldwin, La. 70514

US PRESIDENT Barack Obama will tonight address the American people and will underline the scale of the catastrophe now unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico.

He is expected to promise to hold BP to account for the environmental damage wreaked by its eight-week-old oil leak.

His prime-time broadcast comes at the start of a crucial week in the response to the crisis. Senior politicians from the Obama administration and the Democratic hierarchy in Congress are lining up to ramp up the pressure on BP amid accusations the disaster is spinning out of control.

Mr Obama is expected to use his Oval Office speech to outline plans to force the oil giant to set up an independently monitored multibillion-dollar fund to compensate victims of the spill. He will also lay out a detailed timeline of how the worst of the calamity could be contained.

The president began his new offensive yesterday with a two-day visit to the stricken Gulf region. As he landed in Gulfport, Mississippi, he deployed the sharpest language available to him: he likened the environmental impact of the Deep Horizon explosion to the impact on the national psyche of 9/11.

In an interview with the website Politico, he said: “In the same way that our view of our vulnerabilities and our foreign policy was shaped profoundly by 9/11, I think this disaster is going to shape how we think about the environment and energy for many years to come.”

He added that the disaster would act as an impetus “to move forward in a bold way in a direction that finally gives us the kind of future-oriented, visionary energy policy that we so vitally need and that has been absent for so long”.

Mr Obama’s comparison of the impact of the oil spill on the environmental debate to the foreign policy impact of 9/11 drew some angry responses from families of the victims of the attacks.

Jim Riches, former deputy chief of New York’s fire department, whose son died in the World Trade Center, said: “These were terrorist attacks, not something caused by people trying to make money.”

Mr Obama’s trip to the region was his fourth since the oil well exploded on April 20th and saw him travel beyond the boundaries of the worst-hit state, Louisiana, for the first time.

He was scheduled to take in three states – Mississippi, Alabama and Florida – including his first ride on a boat into the waters of the Gulf, in which he was visiting barrier islands in Alabama that are now coated in oil.

Hours before the broadcast, the energy and environment sub-committee of the House of Representatives will call senior BP officials in to answer questions on the company’s handling of the crisis.

The president will then hold his first meeting with a team of top BP staff led by the oil giant’s chairman, Carl-Henric Svanberg.

© 2010 Guardian Service

BP HAS HIRED LOCAL COUNSEL AND YOU SHOULD TO.

WE ARE ACCEPTING CLIENTS:

• COMMERCIAL FISHERMEN
• COMMERCIAL BOAT OWNERS
• OYSTERMEN / SHRIMPERS
• LANDOWNERS / LEASE HOLDERS

Call (601) 355-2022 for a free consultation or click the following link to download our law firm’s client intake form: Gulf of Mexico – Deepwater Horizon Incident Questionnaire.