It’s been the better part of two years since BP p.l.c.’s Macondo well exploded off the Louisiana coast, resulting in a towering conflagration that killed 11 men and produced the largest oil spill in U.S. history. And while cleanup efforts along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico have largely wound down, the sprawling litigation spawned by the disaster is getting ready to gear up.
On February 27 the litigants and their legion of attorneys are scheduled to assemble in federal district court in New Orleans. Judge Carl Barbier will preside over the initial trial on the BP spill—an action meant to establish which parties are responsible for how much of the billions in damages claims that have been filed by tens of thousands of plaintiffs—not to mention the billions more in cleanup costs, fines, and penalties sought by federal, state, and local governments. Given the stakes involved, the pretrial sparring has been intense, replete with charges and countercharges involving fraud, destruction of evidence, tampering with potential witnesses, and making false and misleading statements. And that’s just among the codefendants. “Look, when a company’s very existence is at stake, things are going to get a little nasty,” says a lawyer for one of the defendants.
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