Gulf Coast oil spillers to face day in court

Nearly three years after a deepwater well rupture killed 11 men, sank a rig and spewed 4 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, BP and the other companies involved are scheduled to face their judge in court.

The trial over the worst US offshore oil spill is set to start Monday in New Orleans before a federal judge and without a jury. Few expect the case, seen lasting several months, will be decided by the judge.

An eleventh-hour settlement this weekend is a possibility, but legal experts expect a resolution, at least with the US Department of Justice, in the coming months. Early testimony is likely to set the tone for any settlement talks, depending on how damaging the evidence is, they said.

"This is a game of corporate chicken," said John Zavitsanos, a Houston civil litigator. "We have tangled with BP often, and they blink."

Joining well owner BP Plc in Judge Carl Barbier's courtroom will be rig owner Transocean Ltd and well cement services provider Halliburton Co.

Lined up against them will be the Justice Department, several Gulf Coast states and other plaintiffs.

BP has a history of settling civil cases before or during trial. Four trials began over the 2005 explosion at its Texas City refinery that killed 15 people. All were settled. Payouts totalled $3.1 billion. BP has since sold the refinery.

The stakes are higher this time, though. The Macondo well explosion and spill on April 20, 2010 affected five state coastlines, prompted a six-month ban on oil and gas drilling in the Gulf and disrupted the livelihoods of fishermen, hoteliers and others. And once a trial gets under way, a new dynamic can take hold.

"If the first couple of days are good for the plaintiffs or good for the defendants, that could shift. Once the first pitch is thrown, those odds could change," said Anthony Sabino, a business law professor at St. John's University School of Law.

Just ahead of the trial, BP won agreement from the Justice Department to exclude 810,000 barrels from the total spilt barrels estimate, but BP says the estimate is still too high. It also wants "efforts to do the right thing" afterwards taken into account and has earmarked only $3.5 billion for Clean Water Act payments, compared with its potential maximum liability of $17.5 billion.

A BP settlement with the Justice Department over such a large liability could lead to another delay of a trial that has already been postponed.

"With the federal government out of it, he (Barbier) might well postpone ... particularly if the states indicated to him that they were continuing to talk," said Ed Sherman of Tulane University Law School in New Orleans.

"REASONABLE TERMS"  

BP has already paid out $9 billion in a partial settlement over the spill. Last year it also settled 14 criminal charges with a guilty plea and a record $4 billion in fines and penalties.

The civil claims to be covered next week could surpass these, and the trial's significance to BP was evident at a February 5 news conference in London. When Chief Executive Bob Dudley said the company would vigorously defend itself, he repeatedly looked toward his top in-house lawyer, Rupert Bondy, for moral support.

BP has repeatedly said it will settle on "reasonable terms," but Bondy drew a line in the sand this week, saying the British company now goes to trial "faced with demands that are excessive and not based on reality."