BP Confirms Mexican Lawsuit over Deepwater Horizon

BP confirmed Wednesday that it is being sued by the Mexican government in relation to the Deepwater Horizon disaster. The firm's first quarter results Tuesday revealed that, since March 6, it is among a number of companies named as defendants in more than 2,200 additional civil lawsuits related to the incident.

Plaintiffs include a "foreign government", which press reports speculated was Mexico. In a phone call with Rigzone Tuesday, a BP press officer confirmed that the foreign government is indeed Mexico, which had said back in 2010 that it would look at some sort of action against the company in relation to the Deepwater Horizon spill.

BP is currently evaluating the lawsuits, of which it said the vast majority consist of claims under the US Oil Pollution Act 1990 (OPA 90). BP said it believes that claimants in these new lawsuits may have sought to file them in advance of the third anniversary of the incident on April 20 2013 in order to avoid time bar challenges under OPA 90's three-year statute of limitations.

Meanwhile, BP reported late Tuesday that it has reached agreement with Federal and Natural Resources Damages trustees on two additional proposed early restoration projects in Louisiana that are expected to cost approximately $340 million.

The projects are part of a commitment from BP to provide up to $1 billion in early restoration funding to speed up recovery of natural resources that were damaged as a result of the Deepwater Horizon incident.

"We are extremely pleased to have reached agreement with the trustees on the new projects, which will provide significant long-term benefits to the environment and the people of Louisiana," said Laura Folse, BP's executive vice president for Response and Environmental Restoration.

"With the help of the extensive cleanup efforts, early restoration projects, and natural recovery processes, the Gulf is returning to its baseline condition, which is the condition it would be in if the accident had not occurred."

A former engineer, Jon is an award-winning editor who has covered the technology, engineering and energy sectors since the mid-1990s. Email Jon at jmainwaring@rigzone.com.

Generated by readers, the comments included herein do not reflect the views and opinions of Rigzone. All comments are subject to editorial review. Off-topic, inappropriate or insulting comments will be removed.

View the original article here

US Supreme Court Throws Out Lawsuit Against Shell

WASHINGTON -

The Supreme Court Wednesday said a centuries-old statute making international law enforceable in U.S. federal court can't be applied to actions that take place overseas, blunting a tool human-rights groups had used against torturers and other abusers for violations in their home countries.

In an opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts, the court held that the Alien Tort Claims Act, adopted in 1789 shortly after Congress met for the first time, applies only to actions that take place in the U.S. While all justices voted to dismiss the suit against Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Justice Stephen Breyer, joined by three other liberals, disputed the bright line majority conservatives drew.

Justice Breyer wrote that some lawsuits based on overseas acts should be permitted, if the defendant is an American national or the challenged conduct allegedly harms American interests.

In past decades, victims of former officials of foreign governments have won judgments in federal courts against their abusers. Those rarely have been paid, however, and more recently human-rights advocates have pursued defendants with deeper pockets, such as corporations doing business in countries with questionable regimes, under a theory that they are complicit in the misconduct.

The Supreme Court's ruling Wednesday will close off many such suits.

Still, the majority opinion left open at least the theoretical possibility that some acts abroad could so significantly "touch and concern the territory of the United States" to "displace the presumption" against the statute's use. In a concurring opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy emphasized that future cases could provide "further elaboration and explanation" of that exception.

The alien tort law remained dormant for most of its history until human-rights advocates rediscovered it in the 1970s and began applying it to violations of modern international law.

In 1980, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York, ruled that a Paraguayan immigrant could invoke the law against a former Paraguayan police official for the torture and killing of her brother in Paraguay.

Wednesday's ruling involved a case brought by Nigerian refugees against Royal Dutch Shell. The plaintiffs alleged that the Anglo-Dutch oil giant aided and abetted the Nigerian government in a repressive campaign in the country's Ogoni region. Shell denies the allegations.

Initially, the Supreme Court agreed to consider whether the alien-tort law applied to corporations as well as individuals, but after a first round of arguments in February 2012, the justices ordered additional arguments over the far-broader question of whether the law applies at all to events overseas.

At arguments last October, several justices voiced concern that affirming such liability would make American courts a magnet for aggrieved foreign plaintiffs bringing claims for acts completely unrelated to the U.S.--and could invite foreign courts to encourage judging U.S. corporations for actions outside their own borders.

The case is Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co.

Copyright (c) 2013 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

Generated by readers, the comments included herein do not reflect the views and opinions of Rigzone. All comments are subject to editorial review. Off-topic, inappropriate or insulting comments will be removed.

View the original article here

Lawsuit Targets $3 Billion in U.S. Funding for Fossil Fuel Project in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef

From: Editor, Center for Biological Diversity
Published December 14, 2012 08:52 AM

Conservation groups filed a lawsuit today challenging the U.S. Export-Import Bank's nearly $3 billion in financing for a massive Australian fossil fuel facility in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area. Construction and operation of the liquefied natural gas facility will threaten sea turtles, dugongs and many other protected marine species, as well as the Great Barrier Reef itself.

"Dirty fossil fuel facilities don't belong in a world-famous marine sanctuary like the Great Barrier Reef," said Sarah Uhlemann, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. "This liquefied natural gas project doesn't meet U.S. standards, and we shouldn't be subsidizing the world's fossil fuel dependence or the destruction of a natural wonder like the Great Barrier Reef."

The Export-Import Bank, a federal agency that funds international projects to promote U.S. exports, provided a $3 billion loan in May 2012 for the project, which will be located in Queensland, northeast Australia. The Australia Pacific LNG project will include drilling 10,000 coal-seam gas wells in interior Queensland using controversial "fracking" techniques, digging nearly 300 miles of gas pipelines and constructing a massive natural-gas processing facility and export terminal. To provide access to the new terminal, the project requires dredging the adjacent harbor and its seagrass beds. Increased tanker traffic will eventually ship the fuel across the Great Barrier Reef to ports in Asia and around the world

Read more at http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/45345

View the original article here