British Petroleum to Pay More Than $370M for Violations in U.S.

British Petroleum and several of its subsidiaries have agreed to pay approximately $373 million in fines and restitution for environmental violations, the U.S. Department of Justice announced. The sanctions stem from a fatal explosion at a Texas refinery in March 2005, leaks of crude oil from pipelines in Alaska, and fraud for conspiring to corner the market and manipulate the price of propane carried through Texas pipelines, the DOJ said.

The total payments agreed to by BP include:

–$50 million in criminal fines to be paid as part of an agreement to plead guilty in the Southern District of Texas to a one-count felony violation of the Clean Air Act. The agreement resulted from the prosecution of BP by the Department of Justice for a catastrophic explosion that occurred at the BP Texas City refinery on March 23, 2005, that killed 15 contract employees and injured more than 170 others;

–$12 million in criminal fines, $4 million in payments to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and $4 million in criminal restitution to the state of Alaska, as part of an agreement to plead guilty by British Petroleum Exploration (Alaska) Inc. (BPXA) to a violation of the Clean Water Act to resolve criminal liability relating to pipeline leaks of crude oil onto the tundra as well as a frozen lake in Alaska;

–A criminal penalty of $100 million, a payment of $25 million to the U.S. Postal Inspection Consumer Fraud Fund, and restitution of approximately $53 million, plus a civil penalty of $125 million to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, as part of an agreement to defer the prosecution of a one-count criminal information filed in the Northern District of Illinois charging BP America Inc. with conspiring to violate the Commodity Exchange Act and to commit mail fraud and wire fraud.

In addition, a 20-count indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Chicago charges four former employees of a subsidiary of BP America Inc. with conspiring to manipulate and corner the TET propane market in February 2004, and to sell TET propane at an artificially inflated index price in violation of federal mail and wire fraud statutes, along with substantive violations of the Commodity Exchange Act and wire fraud.

Source: U.S. Department of Justice