A Houston lawyer has sent the senior management team of oil major BP in a US lottery tickets for an upcoming draw with a record jackpot prize of $1.4billion in the hope of reimbursing Macondo oil spill claimants.
In a letter to the company, Coon said he represents “several thousand clients” who have filed claims against BP following the 2010 Macondo Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
He claims if the senior team were to win the total prize it could be used to reimburse claimants still calling for compensation.
Coon said: “I represent several thousand clients in unresolved claims filed against BP as a result of the oil spill.
“These clients range from business owners in the seafood industries, tourism industries, gamin industries to a host of others from Florida to Texas.
“More than five years into this spill, most have not been offered A DIME in compensation from BP, much less any settlement offer, in spite of our submissions to the initial OPA program at BP, extensive documentation of many of the claims when remitted to your Gulf Coast Claims Facility before it was shut down, and final demands to BP through the last OPA program set up and also
shut down by BP.
“In addition, we have made numerous requests to BP counsel to sit down and discuss resolution. Those requests have NEVER even been responded to.
“Almost all of the clients handled by my firm suffered significant financial hardship as a result of this spill, and some of these hard working business owners did not have enough sustaining
capital afterwards and closed their doors forever.”
The lawyer goes on to wish the senior executives “good luck” before signing off with the words “see you at the courthouse.”
Coon has represented clients in a number of high profile cases including Waco as well as the DuPont LaPorte gas leak and the Porter Ranch gas leak.
BP yesterday said it would be making more redundancies globally as it looks to streamline costs.
In its North Sea operations, 600 jobs are expected to go, while globally around 4,000 jobs will be lost.