BP Pleads Guilty to Felony Charges and Agrees to Record $4.5 Billion Criminal Settlement

Timeline Eventconfirmed
criminal-settlementcorporate-prosecutionenvironmental-crimedeepwater-horizondoj-enforcement
Regulatory CaptureFinancial CaptureExecutive Power Expansion
Actors:BP (British Petroleum), Department of Justice, Securities and Exchange Commission, Donald Vidrine, Robert Kaluza, David Rainey, Eric Holder, Lanny Breuer
2012-11-15 · 1 min read

BP reached a landmark $4.5 billion criminal settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice, pleading guilty to 14 criminal charges including 11 felony counts of misconduct or negligent homicide related to the deaths of the 11 workers in the Deepwater Horizon explosion. The settlement included $4 billion in criminal fines and penalties, plus $525 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission for misleading investors about the flow rate of the spill. This marked the largest criminal resolution in U.S. history at the time. The agreement also included a five-year probationary period during which BP's safety and environmental compliance would be monitored. Two BP executives, Donald Vidrine and Robert Kaluza, were charged with manslaughter, while former BP executive David Rainey was charged with obstruction of justice for allegedly lying to federal agents about the oil flow rate. The case set important precedents for holding corporations and individual executives criminally accountable for environmental disasters.

Sources

  1. DOJ Press Release: BP Exploration and Production Inc. Pleads Guilty to SentencingU.S. Department of Justice(2012-11-15)
  2. BP Agrees to Plead Guilty to Crimes in Gulf Oil SpillProPublica(2012-11-15)
  3. Deepwater Horizon Litigation OverviewWikipedia(2022-08-01)