One of the greatest legal circuses on the planet - the trial of BP in the extent of their responsibility for that 2010 Gulf coast of florida oil spill - is scheduled to start in New Orleans on Monday, featuring 34 leading lawyers inside jam-packed federal court and countless others playing video feeds in rooms nearby.
There will be 400 minutes of opening arguments from 11 parties, including the Justice Department. Their email list of exhibits runs nearly a lot of pages, and lawyers up to now have filed 126 depositions and also the names of about 80 potential witnesses. The plaintiffs’ team has essentially built a full new firm, with 300 lawyers, paralegals and support staff committed to the truth. BP includes a similar battery of attorneys from four of the nation’s most prestigious firms.
Settlement talks were underway over the weekend. The Wall Street Journal reported that federal and state officials were preparing a $16 billion offer to BP, but that figure is way more than any figure BP has discussed. Without a deal, opening arguments begins Monday before Judge Carl J. Barbier, himself an ancient plaintiffs’ lawyer, which will try the case under maritime law and therefore with no jury.
“The gulf oil spill case, whether it won't settle before Monday, will likely be unlike another trial brought within the environmental laws,” said David Uhlmann, professor of environmental law with the University of Michigan. “The Justice Department has never tried an environmental case that involved a person's tragedy, economic losses and ecological disaster that occurred during the gulf oil spill.”
Ever since the spill, BP has strived to “make things right,” since it's ads say, spending huge sums to individuals and businesses and in a criminal settlement while using Justice Department inside a bid to set the disaster behind it and acquire lets start work on the organization to be an oil company.
However BP says it’s ready to combat charges which it was guilty of gross negligence inside the April 20, 2010, blowout on its Macondo exploration well, which set the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig unstoppable, killing 11 people and spilling numerous barrels of crude oil in to the Gulf. The London-based oil giant states that a few mistakes by its own employees the ones doing work for the drill rig’s owner, Transocean, and oil-field-services firm Halliburton resulted in the disaster. Those companies will also be defendants inside trial.
An army of private plaintiffs, the Justice Department, state attorneys general and Transocean and Halliburton will all believe that BP is to blame. Issues of damages and penalties will be addressed later in separate proceedings.
“In a great deal of cases it’s the plaintiffs’ versus the defendant’s version. But here, BP’s defense is absolutely to hide behind Transocean and Halliburton,” said Steven Herman, one of several lead plaintiffs’ lawyers along with a veteran of tobacco and Chinese drywall litigation. “We think they were all grossly negligent and wanton and reckless, at the end of the afternoon we don’t’ think them could hide behind the mediocre ones.”
There will be 400 minutes of opening arguments from 11 parties, including the Justice Department. Their email list of exhibits runs nearly a lot of pages, and lawyers up to now have filed 126 depositions and also the names of about 80 potential witnesses. The plaintiffs’ team has essentially built a full new firm, with 300 lawyers, paralegals and support staff committed to the truth. BP includes a similar battery of attorneys from four of the nation’s most prestigious firms.
Settlement talks were underway over the weekend. The Wall Street Journal reported that federal and state officials were preparing a $16 billion offer to BP, but that figure is way more than any figure BP has discussed. Without a deal, opening arguments begins Monday before Judge Carl J. Barbier, himself an ancient plaintiffs’ lawyer, which will try the case under maritime law and therefore with no jury.
“The gulf oil spill case, whether it won't settle before Monday, will likely be unlike another trial brought within the environmental laws,” said David Uhlmann, professor of environmental law with the University of Michigan. “The Justice Department has never tried an environmental case that involved a person's tragedy, economic losses and ecological disaster that occurred during the gulf oil spill.”
Ever since the spill, BP has strived to “make things right,” since it's ads say, spending huge sums to individuals and businesses and in a criminal settlement while using Justice Department inside a bid to set the disaster behind it and acquire lets start work on the organization to be an oil company.
However BP says it’s ready to combat charges which it was guilty of gross negligence inside the April 20, 2010, blowout on its Macondo exploration well, which set the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig unstoppable, killing 11 people and spilling numerous barrels of crude oil in to the Gulf. The London-based oil giant states that a few mistakes by its own employees the ones doing work for the drill rig’s owner, Transocean, and oil-field-services firm Halliburton resulted in the disaster. Those companies will also be defendants inside trial.
An army of private plaintiffs, the Justice Department, state attorneys general and Transocean and Halliburton will all believe that BP is to blame. Issues of damages and penalties will be addressed later in separate proceedings.
“In a great deal of cases it’s the plaintiffs’ versus the defendant’s version. But here, BP’s defense is absolutely to hide behind Transocean and Halliburton,” said Steven Herman, one of several lead plaintiffs’ lawyers along with a veteran of tobacco and Chinese drywall litigation. “We think they were all grossly negligent and wanton and reckless, at the end of the afternoon we don’t’ think them could hide behind the mediocre ones.”