Major UK shareholders in BP have joined together to sue the British energy giant in the US over lost earnings from the infamous
Deepwater Horizon oil rig blast in 2010. The case is the first in the US, where awards are much bigger than in the UK.
© Agence France-Presse / Mark RalstonA National Guard Blackhawk helicopter flies over the oil slick as it passes through the protective barrier formed by the Chandeleur Islands, as cleanup operations continue for the BP Deepwater Horizon platform disaster off Louisiana, on May 7, 2010.
The new litigation is led by Pomerantz Law, which has brought together 32 major BP shareholders from various countries, though mostly from Great Britain, who acquired their shares before the 2010 accident in the Gulf of Mexico and sustained financial losses as a result of the collapse in the value of shares that followed the disaster.
The
Deepwater Horizon blowout caused the value of London-based BP shares to immediately plunge by over a half, and even today the shares have not recovered to their restored to their 2010 level.
"The fact that UK pension funds who bought stock on the London Stock Exchange can now participate in bringing claims in the US raises the prospect of recoveries where significant losses have been incurred," Pomerantz lawyer Jennifer Pafiti told the
London Evening Standard.
So far only those investors who bought their BP shares on the US market, for example at the New York Stock Exchange, were allowed to file lawsuits in US courts. A number of rulings in Texas courts now appear to have opened the way for British investors to have their cases heard in the US under English law, however.
© USCGThe BP/Transocean Deepwater Horizon oil rig ablaze.
American judges generally impose much higher fines than their British counterparts, so Pomerantz's lawsuit could potentially cost BP billions of dollars.
"All of the plaintiffs' securities claims relating to the Deepwater Horizon accident are meritless and we will continue to vigorously dispute them," a BP spokesman in London said Friday night, as quoted by
The Guardian.
Among the new litigants preparing lawsuits against BP are over a dozen British and European pension funds, including a pension fund of BP's principal rival, Royal Dutch Shell.
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