BP’s most recent effort to stop settlement payments to Macondo spill claimants has been denied by a US federal judge.
The British supermajor had filed for a requirement for parties seeking compensation for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico spill to provide a proof that their economic losses were caused by the disaster.
But in his Tuesday ruling rejecting the bid US District Judge Carl Barbier’s said the settlement was designed to avoid the delays that would result from a “claim-by claim analysis” of whether each claim can be traced to the spill.
He cited BP’s motion filed in August that said once a business meets certain requirements in the settlement, revenue and profit declines are “presumed to be caused by the spill, with no analysis required to determine whether the declines might have been due, at least in part, to other causes.”
BP said it disagreed with the court’s decision and is likely to appeal the ruling.
The company had originally agreed to pay $2.3billion into a compensation programme for those whose livelihood was directly hit by the 2010 spill.
But for months the company has argued a number of claims has been made by parties not harmed by the spill and that the payments violated the terms of the multi-billion dollar settlement it agreed to last year.
Earlier this month a US court upheld a claim by BP that the payout formula for compensation agreed by claims administrator Patrick Juneau was too generous.
About $3.81 billion has been paid out to 40,371 spill claimants to date, according to the company’s estimates.
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