BP Pleads Guilty

BP will plead guilty to fourteen criminal counts and pay $4.5 billion to resolve a U.S. DOJ criminal investigation into the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Three BP employees have also been charged criminally in the matter. According to the New York Times: 

“This is unprecedented, both with regard to the amounts of money, the fact that a company has been criminally charged and that individuals have been charged as well,” Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said at a news conference in New Orleans to announce the settlement.

The government said that BP’s negligence in sealing an exploratory well caused it to explode, sinking the Deepwater Horizon drill rig and unleashing a gusher of oil that lasted for months and coated beaches all along the Gulf Coast. The company initially tried to cover up the severity of the spill, misleading both Congress and investors about how quickly oil was leaking from the runaway well, according to the settlement and related charges...

Under its deal with the Justice Department, BP will pay about $4 billion in penalties over five years. That amount includes $1.256 billion in criminal fines, $2.394 billion to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation for remediation efforts and $350 million to the National Academy of Sciences. The criminal fine is one of the largest levied by the United States against a corporation.

BP also agreed to pay $525 million to settle civil charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission that it misled investors about the flow rate of oil from the well.

In addition, the company will submit to four years of government monitoring of its safety practices and ethics....

Click here for the entire New York Times article.