Transocean uses old law

Lawyers for victims of the BP/Transocean Deepwater Horizon oil spill have argued that Transocean must not be allowed to use a 150-year-old law to limit its liabilities to the value of the sunken rig, Bloomberg reports.

The Oil Pollution Act of 1990, passed after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, supersedes the older law, layers for the Louisiana Environmental Action Network and the United Commercial Fisherman’s Association said in court papers.

Even under the old law, the negligence of BP and Transocean would make it inapplicable, plaintiffs’ lawyer Kurt Arnold told US District Judge Keith Ellison.

“Give me depositions of the top five or six BP guys” who were working on the rig “and this limitation will be over,” Arnold told Ellison at the hearing. “We can bust this limitation sooner rather than later.”

Old law

Transocean asked Ellison on 13 May to cap its financial liability at $26.7m under a maritime statute that limits a vessel-owner’s exposure to the value of its ship and cargo. Transocean’s lawyer, Ron White, asked Ellison to wait until all claims are filed to make any decisions on substantive matters.

“All we’re seeing so far are snapshots,” White said. “You have to look at the big picture.”

Workers’ claims

Lawyers representing 15 workers killed or injured in the 20 April rig explosion, challenged Transocean’s liability limitation. They asked Ellison to require the company to deposit cash or a surety bond equal to “the full value of all vessels” in Transocean’s fleet.

Arnold, the rig workers’ lawyer, says the law should allow victims to file claims against the Deepwater Horizon and “additional vessels within the flotilla, which were under a common operational control, supervision and enterprise.”

Transocean has the world’s largest rig fleet, with 138 mobile offshore drilling units.