U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier has subpoenaed Lamar McKay, BP’s highest-ranking U.S. executive, to testify at the forthcoming trial in New Orleans that will determine liability for 206-million-gallon oil spill that erupted in the Gulf of Mexico last year.

U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier in New Orleans is presiding over multidistrict litigation involving the BP oil spill and has scheduled a nonjury trial to open on February 27. BP and its partners Transocean, which owned and leased the Deepwater Horizon rig to BP, and Halliburton, the company BP contracted to cement the Macondo well, face about 350 lawsuits filed by thousands of individuals and businesses seeking compensation for damages caused by the oil spill.

BP has already settled liability disputes with four other Deepwater Horizon partners. Earlier this month, the oil giant reached an agreement with Cameron International, the manufacturer of the Macondo well’s failed blowout preventer. Similar agreements were made with Anadarko Petroleum, Weatherford U.S. LP, and Moex Offshore, amounting to about $5 billion altogether.

In other legal woes for the oil giant, lawyers for the federal government sought to have BP’s probation revoked last month for a 2009 oil spill that released about 13,500 gallons of oil on Alaska’s North Slope tundra. BP had been on a 3-year probation after pleading guilty in 2007 to violating the Clean Water Act when it spilled 200,000 gallons of oil from its Prudhoe Bay operations onto the North Slope tundra in 2006.

For that spill, BP also paid $12 million in fines and $8 million for restitution and community service. Critics say the fines amounted to nothing more than a faint slap for BP and didn’t provide enough incentive for the oil giant to operate with greater regard for the environment and the lives of its workers.

Source:

Bloomberg

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