Name: SCMP
Telephone: +852-2680-8888

bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

moreOnThisArticles

urlAlias

commentCount

sponsorType

authorLocations

authors

paywallTypes

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

socialHeadline

headline

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

publishedDate

additionalInfoBoxes

images

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

createdDate

sponsor

factSheets

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

copyrighted

customTimezone

liveContents

Reuters

Two former BP supervisors won the dismissal on Tuesday of some of the manslaughter charges facing them over the Gulf of Mexico drilling rig explosion that killed 11 people in 2010.
US District Judge Stanwood Duval in New Orleans dismissed 11 counts of seaman’s manslaughter facing Robert Kaluza and Donald Vidrine, site leaders of the Deepwater Horizon rig.
But the judge refused to dismiss 11 other counts of involuntary manslaughter, leaving those and a Clean Water Act violation charge to be heard at a trial starting in June.
David Gerger, a lawyer for Kaluza, said he was reviewing the decision.
A lawyer for Vidrine and representatives for the US Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
A trial is currently under way in the case of another employee, former BP engineer Kurt Mix, who is accused of deleting records related to the estimated size of the spill. He denies wrongdoing.
Kaluza and Vidrine were the two highest-ranking supervisors on board the Deepwater Horizon when disaster struck on April 20, 2010, sending millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
The indictment accused the men of “negligent and grossly negligent” supervision of testing at the well in the run up to the explosion.
The charges were announced on November 15 last year, the same day BP (formerly called British Petroleum) agreed to pay US$4 billion and plead guilty to 14 criminal counts over conduct leading up to and after the disaster.
In his ruling on Tuesday, Duval rejected the arguments by lawyers for Kaluza and Vidrine that the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act did not extend federal law to the outer continental shelf, where Deepwater Horizon was located.
But the judge accepted the defendants’ arguments that the seaman’s manslaughter charges did not extend to them as oil well site leaders with no navigation function on the Deepwater Horizon.
Duval said his ruling was the first in the statute’s 175-year history to apply the law to a drilling rig blow-out, and he acknowledged the “risk of explosion on board deepwater drilling facilities is a grave matter”.
But Duval said he “refuses to expand the scope of the statute unnecessarily without certainty as to Congress’ intent to do so”.


BP oil spill from Deepwater Horizon spread over huge area of ocean floor

BP supervisors cleared of manslaughter charges over Mexico gulf spill

BP faces new trial and US$18b in fines over 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster

BP renews bid to suspend settlement payments 

Robert Kaluza and Donald Vidrine were the two highest-ranking supervisors on board the Deepwater Horizon when it exploded on April 20, 2010, spilling oil into the gulf of Mexico. Photo: Reuters.

BP drills at 'giant' Gulf field after setback due to spill

BP’s plans to appraise the Tiber discovery were disrupted by the 2010 blowout in which 11 workers died and the oil company had to pay a record US$4 billion in criminal penalties for the worst offshore oil spill in US history. Photo: Reuters

Three years after Gulf spill, BP fights billions in fines

BP spent more than US$14 billion (HK$108.67 billion) responding to and cleaning up after the Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010. Photo: Reuters

Halliburton agrees to plead guilty in Gulf oil spill case

Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Photo: EPA

Halliburton oilfield services corporate offices in Houston. Photo: Reuters

Business

Companies

Two Deepwater managers not guilty of seaman’s manslaughter, but other counts relating to deaths from oil rig explosion still stand
