Transocean Lawsuits

Transocean’s Settlement Offer: Another Disappointment

2010-11-03T21:12:09Z

In September, Transocean Deepwater Drilling, Inc., sent a disappointing letter to those of its employees injured in April’s horrific destruction of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, and who had not yet returned to work or obtained legal representation. While Transocean asserted in its letter to the injured workers that ” we are thinking of you and your welfare,” the communication gave notice that the workers were soon to receive maritime law maintenance and cure benefits, apparently in place of the full salaries that the injured employees continued to receive in the months after the April catastrophe. The disappointment and hypocrisy surrounding that development was widely recognized, as here.

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Texas Maritime Lawyers Challenge Transocean’s Decision To Cut Injured Oil Rig Workers’ Salaries

2010-11-03T21:03:59Z

Houston maritime attorney Kurt Arnold says he is shocked that Transocean Ltd. will cease paying full salary and benefits to crew members who were injured in last April’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

According to news reports, the company said it will slash the salaries and benefits by Dec. 15, just six months after an explosion and fire aboard the oil rig killed 11 workers and triggered the enormous BP oil spill.

Read the Press Release

BP Waives $75 Million Cap

2010-11-03T20:51:25Z

Lawyers from Arnold & Itkin are applauding the BP Company’s announcement that it is waiving a $75 million cap on liability for some claims resulting from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

BP lawyers made the company’s position known in an October court filing. Company lawyers said that BP always intended to pay legitimate economic damage claims ” ” even in some cases where the damages exceed the statutory limitation on liability as established by the 1990 Oil Pollution Act, according to Associated Press reports. Read the Press Release

Although Oil Spill is Slowed, Economic Damages are Still Being Calculated, Says Texas Attorney

2010-07-23T20:13:25Z

The apparent capping of BP’s blown-out well that has been spilling oil into the Gulf of Mexico marks progress, Houston attorney Kurt Arnoldsaid. But an accurate accounting of the spill’s long-term economic damage to commercial fishermen, shrimpers and coastal businesses must be performed, Arnold said.

Judge Rules Against Moratorium

2010-06-22T19:10:13Z

A federal judge in Louisiana has struck down a deep-water drilling ban imposed by the Obama administration in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. The ruling came in a case brought by companies dependent on the oil industry in the Gulf Coast, and was supported by Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. They contended that halting work on 33 drilling rigs had caused undue harm to the state’s economy.

BP Knew About Faulty Blowout Preventer

2010-06-22T19:17:04Z

In an interview with the BBC, a BP employee claimed that he and other Deepwater Horizon rig workers discovered a leak in the well’s blowout preventer weeks before the fateful accident that sank the platform, killing 11 and causing oil to begin leaking into the gulf in the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.

Moratorium on Deepwater Drilling

2010-06-22T19:19:02Z

The Interior Department announced details of a six-month moratorium on deepwater oil drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf.

The department issued a Moratorium Notice to Lessees and Operators notifying them of requirements to be imposed under the moratorium ordered by Secretary Ken Salazar more than one month after an explosion on a Gulf of Mexico oil rig killed 11 workers and touched off a spill that officials say may persist into August.

The moratorium, which does not apply to existing production operations, will give officials time to implement safety requirements and allow a presidential commission to conduct its investigation, Salazar said.

The notice directs oil and gas lessees and operators to cease drilling new deepwater wells and notifies lessees the Minerals Management Service, with some exceptions, will not consider deepwater and related drilling permits for six months.

Download the Moratorium on Deepwater Drilling (pdf)

Transocean Can’t Cap Spill Liability Using Old Law, Lawyers Say

2010-05-26T12:46:05Z

May 26 (Bloomberg) — Transocean Ltd. can’t use a 150-year- old statute to cap its liability against claims arising from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, lawyers for victims of the disaster said at a hearing in federal court in Houston.

The Oil Pollution Act of 1990, passed after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, supersedes the older law in this situation, attorneys for the Louisiana Environmental Action Network and the United Commercial Fisherman’s Association said in court papers, citing earlier decisions. Even under the old law, the negligence of BP and Transocean would make it inapplicable, plaintiffs’ lawyer Kurt Arnold told U.S. District Judge Keith P. 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 yesterday’s hearing. ” We can bust this limitation sooner rather than later.”

Transocean asked Ellison on May 13 to cap its financial liability at $26.7 million under a maritime statute that limits a vessel-owner’s exposure to the value of its ship and cargo. Transocean owned the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that exploded and sank last month while drilling an offshore lease owned by BP Plc.

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.”

Claims Deadline

” Is that a luxury we have in this case?” Ellison asked. He previously set a claims deadline in his court for November.

BP, which owns the underwater lease, and Transocean face more than 130 lawsuits filed by thousands of commercial fishermen, property owners and tourism-related businesses claiming harm from oil leaking from the damaged subsea well. The oil threatens the coastline of four states and has led to closure of almost 20 percent of the Gulf’s fishery, the U.S.’s second-largest.

” All you have to do is turn on CNN and you’ve got the big picture,” said Scott Bickford, an attorney for plaintiffs suing Transocean and BP. ” When you look at what these companies have wrought on the people and coastline of Louisiana, we don’t need to wait.”

Fleet’s Value

Lawyers representing 15 workers killed or injured in the April 20 rig explosion, challenged Transocean’s liability limitation and 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, said in a May 24 filing that the maritime statute Transocean is relying on to argue that its liability should be capped can also be interpreted as allowing 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, according to its website. According to the company’s annual report to shareholders, the carrying value of Transocean’s property and equipment was $23 billion as of Dec. 31.

Guy Cantwell, a Transocean spokesman, declined to comment yesterday on Arnold’s interpretation of the maritime statute or the fleet’s value.

If Ellison agrees that Transocean may limit its liability under the statute, Arnold asked the judge in court papers to include insurance proceeds the company received for the sunken rig in the limitation calculation. This month, Transocean said it had collected $481 million from a $560 million insurance policy on the rig.

Lawyers and Ellison didn’t discuss that request at yesterday’s hearing.

The case is In Re The complaint and petition of Triton Asset Leasing GMBH, 4:10-cv-01721, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Texas (Houston).

Arnold & Itkin on the NBC Today Show 5/14/10

2010-05-18T19:30:18Z

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NBC Nightly news on 5/13/10

2010-05-18T19:26:20Z

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