US court approves $4bn BP criminal penalty

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US court approves $4bn BP criminal penalty - Americas - Al Jazeera English

A US judge has approved an agreement for British oil giant BP PLC to plead guilty to manslaughter and other charges and pay a record $4bn in criminal penalties for the company's role in the 2010 oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

More than 200 million gallons of oil spewed in the three months before BP's blown-out Macondo well could be capped. It was one of the worst environmental disasters in US history.


Returning to the Gulf two years after the BP oil spill
BP agreed in November to plead guilty to charges involving the deaths of 11 workers in the drilling rig explosion that started the spill and for lying to Congress about the size of the spill.

The company could have withdrawn from the agreement if US District Judge Sarah Vance had rejected it.

Neither the Justice Department nor BP presented arguments to the judge before her decision.

Vance said the plea deal was "just punishment" considering the risks of litigation for BP and the alternatives to the settlement.

She told victims' relatives who were in court that she read their "truly gut-wrenching" written statements and factored their words into her decision.

BP America vice president Luke Keller apologized to the relatives of the workers who died and for the spill's environmental damage to the Gulf Coast.

"BP knows there is nothing we can say to diminish their loss," he said. "The lives lost and those forever changed will stay with us. We are truly sorry."
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