5th Circuit orders temporary halt to business loss payments without proof of BP oil spill damage

Source: The Times-Picayune

Just 10 days after a federal judge in New Orleans lambasted BP for demanding that businesses must prove their losses were caused by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill before being paid under the terms of a private settlement, an appeals court ordered the judge not to allow such payments without proof that losses resulted from the spill.

But the ruling by a three-judge panel only applies during a temporary stay in the claims payment process that is in effect until U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier, who is overseeing the class action settlement, approves rule changes in the claims program, or until a separate three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit rules on whether the claims should be paid without such proof as part of a larger appeal over whether the settlement agreement is fair.

In that appeal, which BP joined after it became clear that settlement payments were going to total well beyond the company's initial $7.8 billion estimate, BP attorneys argued that if Barbier didn't rewrite the business economic loss rules to require proof of "causation," that losses were directly caused by the accident, the entire settlement should be thrown out.

It's yet another complicated ruling involving the equally complicated private settlement aimed at paying businesses and individuals for damages resulting from BP's April 2010 Macondo well blowout, the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and ensuing oil spill.

Read more: http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2013/12/5th_circuit_orders_temporary_h.html