NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Now that a $4 billion plea deal has resolved BP's criminal liability for the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill nearly three years ago, the company will turn its focus to a trial that could potentially cost it billions of dollars more in civil penalties.
At the conclusion of a hearing Tuesday that included emotional testimony and a BP executive's apology, a federal judge agreed to let the London-based oil giant plead guilty to manslaughter charges for the April 2010 deaths of 11 workers on the Deepwater Horizon rig and pay the record amount of criminal penalties.
What the plea deal approved by U.S. District Judge Sarah Vance doesn't resolve, though, is the federal government's civil claims against BP.
A trial scheduled to start Feb. 25 is designed to identify the causes of BP's well blowout, which triggered the deadly rig explosion and massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, 2010. The first phase of the trial also is designed to assign percentages of blame to BP and its partners in the ill-fated drilling project.
BP and the Justice Department have engaged in settlement talks that could resolve the civil claims against BP by the federal government and Gulf states before trial.
David Uhlmann, a University of Michigan law professor and former chief of the Justice Department's environmental crimes section, said it's reasonable to expect a civil settlement with the Justice Department to cost BP more than twice as much as the criminal settlement.
"There is tremendous incentive for both sides to settle," Uhlmann said, noting that BP would face much larger civil penalties if the government can convince the trial judge that the company acted with gross negligence before the deadly blowout.
Vance noted that the company already has racked up more than $24 billion in spill-related expenses and has estimated it will pay a total of $42 billion to fully resolve its liability for the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
BP agreed in November to plead guilty to charges involving the workers' deaths and for lying to Congress about the size of the spill from its broken well, which spewed more than 200 million gallons of oil. Much of it ended up in the Gulf and soiled the shorelines of several states. The company could have withdrawn from the agreement if Vance had rejected it. The judge said the $4 billion criminal settlement is "just punishment" for BP, even though the company could have paid far more without going broke. In accepting the deal, Vance also cited the risk that a trial could result in a much lower fine for BP, one potentially capped by law at $8.2 million.
The criminal settlement calls for BP to pay nearly $1.3 billion in fines. The largest previous corporate criminal penalty assessed by the Justice Department was a $1.2 billion fine against drug maker Pfizer in 2009.
