Ex-BP Engineer Deserves New Gulf Spill Trial -US Appeals Court
A former BP Plc engineer deserves a new trial on an obstruction of justice charge related to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans agreed with a lower court judge's decision last June to throw out the defendant Kurt Mix's December 2013 conviction. U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval acted after learning that the jury forewoman admitted to having heard in a courthouse elevator that other BP employees were being prosecuted over the spill…
Court: BP Employees Can't Be Charged Under Seaman's Manslaughter Law
A federal court ruled on Wednesday that BP well site leaders on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig cannot be charged with seaman's manslaughter in the deaths of eleven workers that died during the 2010 rig explosion because they were not seamen. A federal grand jury in Louisiana had indicted Robert Kaluza and Donald Vidrine, the top ranking BP employees on the rig, with 23 counts, including 11 counts of seaman's manslaughter. The United States District Court for the Eastern District…
BP Well Manager on Leave Pending Investigations
According to a June 24 report from Bloomberg, the BP Plc manager who oversaw the well that erupted in April has been placed on leave while at least four federal agencies probe the disaster. The report said that Donald Vidrine, the well site leader aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that exploded and sank, said in an interview yesterday that he has been on administrative leave since the incident. Vidrine was the top-ranking BP decision-maker on duty aboard the rig when it was rocked by a surge of gas from beneath the sea floor, Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward told a House panel last week. Just hours before the disaster, Vidrine overruled objections from representatives of rig owner Transocean Ltd.
