BP Class Action Lawsuit

British Petroleum (BP) will surely face a class action lawsuit as a result of the behavior in the Gulf of Mexico. Besides their responsibility for the Gulf cleanup, they’ll also be held accountable for the economic loss and devastation their negligence has caused in the recent oil spill.
After the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989 a federal law was passed to make the oil company responsible for the spill and the costs associated with it. This law will govern BP’s liability and responsibility for the cleanup as well as compensating fishermen and others whose livelihoods have been threatened by the BP oil spill. The 1989 law set a $75 million cap on damages but the BP spill will likely exceed that amount. In response to the Gulf spill, several Democratic senators have introduced legislation that would raise that cap to $10 billion. It’s not clear whether such legislation, if signed into law, would be retroactive to cover this BP oil spill in the Gulf.