British business leaders and politicians have accused an American judge of discriminating against BP after ruling that the oil company was primarily to blame for the Gulf of Mexico disaster rather than its contractors.
The Institute of Directors said BP was “being vilified by an egregious US justice system significantly shaped by hostile public opinion” and warned that foreign investment could be scared off.
Judge Carl Barbier ruled on Thursday that BP was “grossly negligent” over the disaster in April 2010, which resulted in the death of 11 rig workers and the worst US oil spill in history.
It leaves the oil company, which is appealing against the verdict, facing the maximum possible fine of $17.6 billion.
However, BP’s contractors on the doomed well, the US group Halliburton and Swiss-based Transocean, which until recently was based in Houston, were awarded the less serious verdicts of simple negligence that carries a much lower penalty.
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Simon Walker, director general of the IoD, said: “There is no reason for BP to carry a disproportionate burden of responsibility. Other companies involved in the disaster — notably US group Halliburton — are being let off much more lightly.
“This is the latest signal that US courts are sometimes prepared to squeeze a non-US business for as much as they can get away with.”
Lord Jones of Birmingham, the chairman of Triumph Motorcyles and a former trade minister, said that Judge Barbier had been influenced by hostile US public opinion against BP. “If BP was an American company and Transocean and Halliburton were British companies would this decision have been the same way round?” asked Lord Jones, whose website lists him as an adviser to BP.
David Amess, the Conservative MP, said: “I think it is totally unfair, they should all be treated equally, why single out BP?
“There would seem to be some unfairness here and a little bit more to all this than meets the eye.” He added: “I think we are so often the fall guys.”
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Lord Tebbit, the former Tory trade secretary, called on the UK government to retaliate by “making life difficult” for US companies over the “grossly discriminatory attitude” against BP.
Halliburton cemented the faulty well, with BP later accusing it of carrying out a “bad cement job”. Transocean owned the Deepwater Horizon rig that exploded. Tony Hayward, then chief executive of BP, initially blamed the disaster on Transocean, declaring: “This was not our accident. This was not our drilling rig. This was Transocean’s rig.”
Judge Barbier ruled that BP was 67 per cent to blame for the disaster, with Transocean bearing 30 per cent of the blame and Halliburton 3 per cent.
BP shares closed up 8½p to 463½p after analysts said the 6 per cent share price slide after Thursday’s verdict was an overreaction.