BP and Three Executives Facing Criminal Charges Over Oil Spill

Corporations are people by Toe,+The · 2012-11-28 09:11 · Score: 5, Insightful

Who knew that could ever come back and bite them in the ass?

Re:Corporations are people by MozeeToby · 2012-11-28 09:24 · Score: 3, Informative

Oil is a fungible commodity. That is to say, oil of similar quality is worth the same regardless of whom it comes from. That is to say, they cannot raise prices because their competitors (of which there are many, many competitors in the crude oil industry) will eat them alive.
And even ignoring all that, your statement implies that by raising prices they could increase their profit margins. Why wouldn't they be doing that before the fine was levied. That would be like someone at the boardroom meeting says "if we increase our prices by 10% we will see a $4.5 billion increase in profit", if it worked that way they would have done it already.
Re:Corporations are people by wer32r · 2012-11-28 09:24 · Score: 1

So, companies had their rights elevated to the rights of people.. But what would happen if people had their rights elevated to the rights of companies? I mean, manslaughter -> pay $4.5 billion, and walk free.
Re:Corporations are people by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-28 09:26 · Score: 4, Insightful

Yea but that's not exactly a market in which competition is a thing. They'll just jointly raise prices, the others will make a bit more profit in the short-term for when it's their turn to pay for a major fuckup and the industry as a whole does business as usual.
Re:Corporations are people by vlm · 2012-11-28 09:35 · Score: 5, Insightful

Oh how I wish this wasn't posted AC...
Thats exactly how an oligarchy works. Today, company A would love to raise prices to make more money, but B and C won't play along, so they can't. We now know for certain that company B will raise prices next week by X dollars. Therefore A and C will match and stash away the profit.
Its not entirely bad, because its not so much a fine for BP as a reward via higher profits to all their competitors. If CEO compensation were related to profit (which it is not) then there would be intense pressure to not screw up and miss out on the fine platter of free profit.

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"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Re:Corporations are people by vlm · 2012-11-28 09:36 · Score: 2

So, companies had their rights elevated to the rights of people.. But what would happen if people had their rights elevated to the rights of companies?
I mean, manslaughter -> pay $4.5 billion, and walk free.
Must be new, or young. search wikipedia for OJ Simpson

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"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Re:Corporations are people by MaskedSlacker · 2012-11-28 09:38 · Score: 1

It costs a lot less than that to walk free from manslaughter.
Re:Corporations are people by Bigby · 2012-11-28 09:42 · Score: 1

Or cut off my finger and put it in prison. Since my finger was the one that pulled the trigger, just like the executive is taking all the responsibility for the company.
Re:Corporations are people by ixnaay · 2012-11-28 09:47 · Score: 1

First time I've seen compounded "That is to say's" in the wild.
Re:Corporations are people by wer32r · 2012-11-28 09:49 · Score: 1

From Wikipedia:

Incarcerated at Lovelock Correctional Center, Nevada
It seems to me that he did not get to just pay and walk free.
Re:Corporations are people by wisnoskij · 2012-11-28 09:50 · Score: 1

If BP controls the franchise than even if they do not set the price they would have near absolute control over it.

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Re:Corporations are people by MozeeToby · 2012-11-28 10:01 · Score: 1

For some people you have to simplify the simplification of the simplification. When I feel that is necessary, I like to make it obvious that I'm dumbing things down so I don't feel as stupid spelling things out.
Re:Corporations are people by newcastlejon · 2012-11-28 10:03 · Score: 1

Given the slim profits that garages make from petrol sales (in the UK at least) that wouldn't surprise me. I've heard that the average garage makes less than £100 each day from petrol; their main earners are magazines and snacks. Admittedly this is all anecdotal.

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If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
Re:Corporations are people by osu-neko · 2012-11-28 10:04 · Score: 1

Must be new, or young. search wikipedia for OJ Simpson
That's not a good example to generalize from, though. When the prosecution presents a case with holes big enough to drive a white Ford Bronco through, this is the result. It wasn't so much a competent defender as utterly incompetent cops and prosecutors...

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"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Re:Corporations are people by TFAFalcon · 2012-11-28 10:10 · Score: 1

Bonuses related to profit would just screw up things more. They'd do deals that give extreme profits now, but wreck the companies future. So they get a bonus, company profits plummet in the beginning of next year, they get fired and get their golden parachute. What more could they ask for?
Re:Corporations are people by Golddess · 2012-11-28 10:11 · Score: 1

That's similar to what I've heard, which is that while the not-gasoline items have a higher per-unit profit value, gasoline is still where the majority of their income comes from simply due to the volume of gasoline being sold.

But I don't know if that is true or not, it is simply something I've heard.

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Re:Corporations are people by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-28 10:24 · Score: 1

How about they don't get their golden parachute? And get bonus as company stock, 6 months later.
Re:Corporations are people by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-28 10:25 · Score: 1

Not necessarily. Firstly CEO compensation is already largely based off of profit in the form of large bonuses for successful quarters/annums. Second, I would assert your premise is false, if not counter-productive.
When CEO compensation is not related to profit, then the CEOs only incentive for performing well is to keep their job. In contrast, if the CEO's compensation is directly tied to the profit of the company, then the CEO now has an added motivation of making a fair dime or two extra.
But isn't that good? The CEO is more invested in the health of the company! WRONG, because quarterly or annual profits does not equate to long-term sustainability. Instead, now you have CEOs (not all, but certainly some) who will cut the legs out from underneath a company in order to squeeze out as much in incentive bonuses as possible. With this added incentive, you find an even bigger focus on short-term profits at the expense of the long-term. It is exactly that kind of mentality that caused this problem in the first place: ignoring serious problems because fixing them means less profits in the short-term!
Re:Corporations are people by newcastlejon · 2012-11-28 10:29 · Score: 2

They must sell a lot of petrol indeed.

Most independent forecourts make between two and four pence profit on a litre of fuel – meaning a full tank only earns the petrol station between £1 and £2.
Link is a bit outdated but I can't see how a garage's lot will have improved much in the past year. For the sake of those who live in other countries, a full tank of fuel here costs around the £50-60 mark (€60-75 or $80-100)

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If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
Re:Corporations are people by TFAFalcon · 2012-11-28 10:41 · Score: 1

OJ did his bribing in secret (at least at the criminal trial). This would let a person walk into court, plead guilty and pay the fine for murder.
Re:Corporations are people by dwywit · 2012-11-28 10:41 · Score: 1

I wonder if it's an option to pay performance-related bonuses 2 or 3 years down the track. IOW, delay paying this year's bonus (i.e. the reward for big profits this year), for a few years. That way, if the company continues to be profitable, the CEO/exec team has earned their bonus, and good on them. If the company is not profitable at that later stage, the company keeps the bonus and uses it in whatever way it needs, to become profitable again, e.g. research, infrastructure, investment, whatever. Or maybe to pay redundancies to some workers

Sorry about the wait Mr CEO, but we (shareholders) want proof that you're here for the long-term betterment of the company, not the short-term betterment of your bank account. This would force CEOs to stop focussing on short-term profits. Here's the pie-in-the-sky part: if all the public companies in a particular field, e.g. mining, stopped putting out quarterly profit/earnings statements, the speculators won't have the information they need to buy or sell shares for short-term profits, and maybe they'll start to make decisions based on medium or long-term performance.

And maybe pigs will fly.

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They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
Re:Corporations are people by TFAFalcon · 2012-11-28 10:45 · Score: 1

No, not the death penalty, you need to murder people for that. Mass manslaughter is probably still just a life sentence. So put them in prison - have the people who were harmed take control of the company for 100 years or so. Then they can divert all of the profit the company makes to fix the damage the company did and at the same time deny any bonuses to the management.
Re:Corporations are people by Firethorn · 2012-11-28 10:46 · Score: 1

I've played around a bit with proposing having bonuses be based on difference in the net worth of the company between two time periods - profit + assets, NOT stock price. The time period should be not less than a year, and the really big bonuses for things more like 5-10 year performance.

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I don't read AC A human right
Re:Corporations are people by rtb61 · 2012-11-28 12:02 · Score: 1

That whole idea of pursuing individual employess of a company, including the CEO, is that is in addition to fines and possible break up of the company. So as always prosecutions start down low, further investigation and access to greater evidence pushes the prosecutions higher up within the company. Obviously the goal should be to prosecute the senior executives and the board as they are either incompetent in managing a company which is out of control or they are colluding in the high risk management of the company. So will the lower downs take the brunt of the prosecution or will they seek to minimise their penalties and pass the buck up the line. Now how about Halliburton and Transocean and their executives.

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Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Re:Corporations are people by perceptual.cyclotron · 2012-11-28 12:23 · Score: 1

I'm afraid I still can't get my head around why a CEO, or anyone for that matter, should ever get a bonus of any kind. Tips are one thing – and most people in a line of work getting tips aren't exactly pulling down large salaries (in fact, those serving alcohol can legally be paid below minimum wage because of the assumption that tips will make up for it). So ignoring tip jobs, why the hell should anyone get a bonus? Just do your fucking job or someone else will. Especially if you're already pulling down some outrageously unjustifiable salary. There's really no sensible explanation for why it's possible for one employed individual to earn 5-6 orders of magnitude more than another employed individual. Do we really believe it's possible to do 6 orders of magnitude more work than someone else? I just don't get it. I really don't.
Re:Corporations are people by dwywit · 2012-11-28 12:47 · Score: 1

I don't have a problem with bonuses as such, just as long as they are tied to realistic performance criteria, such as my suggestion above. You've got to have payment systems to attract the best & brightest, unfortunately shareholders and boards of directors too frequently equate "best & brightest" with quarterly profit and market-speak, rather than fine judgement and actual ability. The old-boy network is also alive & well.

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They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
Re:Corporations are people by kelemvor4 · 2012-11-28 14:16 · Score: 1

So, companies had their rights elevated to the rights of people.. But what would happen if people had their rights elevated to the rights of companies? I mean, manslaughter -> pay $4.5 billion, and walk free.
If you had $4.5 billion you could probably do it.
Re:Corporations are people by bzipitidoo · 2012-11-28 14:25 · Score: 1

If the company is not profitable at that later stage, the company keeps the bonus and uses it in whatever way it needs, to become profitable again
The unspoken and sadly true assumption here is that the bonus is big enough to do that.

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Re:Corporations are people by dwywit · 2012-11-28 14:40 · Score: 1

I don't have any actual figures, but the combined total bonus of CEO, CFO, CTO, and the rest of the exec team times 3 years must add up to a decent sum.

Let's put it another way - a company puts aside a certain amount of annual profit (equivalent to exec team bonuses) as a "future fund" or reserve fund for future downturns. Any money that's been in the fund longer than three years is eligible to be paid to the exec team as a bonus, subject to ongoing overall profitability. If you voluntarily leave the company before you become eligible for your bonus, you can still receive up to one-third of the money.

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They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
Re:Corporations are people by dougmc · 2012-11-28 16:23 · Score: 1

Who knew that could ever come back and bite them in the ass?
Lots of people knew -- it's not like this is anywhere near the first time it's been an issue.
For example, many (most?) states prohibit a felon from owning a liquor license, and when a corporation pleads guilty to a felony -- they lose their license, which can put them out of business if their business is selling liquor.
That said, when Romney made his infamous "corporations are people, my friend" statement, context made it pretty clear that he wasn't talking about the legal status of corporations (even though his statement was fairly correct in that context as well) -- he was pointing out that money made by corporations goes to people.
The full quote was:
"Corporations are people, my friend . . . Of course they are. Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to the people. Where do you think it goes? Whose pockets? Whose pockets? People's pockets. Human beings, my friend."
Re:Corporations are people by Maxmin · 2012-11-28 18:57 · Score: 2, Informative

I hate to spoil the fun, but oil companies don't "set" the price of oil. It's ultimately determined by futures contracts for delivery of the various crude oil products.
Plus supply, demand, production rate, and other smaller factors.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled conspiracy theory.

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Re:Corporations are people by drinkypoo · 2012-11-28 19:22 · Score: 1

"Corporations are people, my friend . . . Of course they are. Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to the people. Where do you think it goes? Whose pockets? Whose pockets? People's pockets. Human beings, my friend."
Of course, he was wrong. If the money went into people's pockets instead of into various tax dodges like the ones he uses, it could be taxed.

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"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:Corporations are people by Genda · 2012-11-28 20:43 · Score: 1

Sorry none of this works because these asshats take out loans on the current stock valuation, and its all just a pile of smoke and mirrors and flaming bullshit, and they screw now, and they screw you later and while their waiting for later to come they screw you some more.
Re:Corporations are people by Genda · 2012-11-28 20:52 · Score: 1

However unscrupulous investors do manipulate the price of oil, and there's nothing stopping oil companies from colluding with said unscrupulous investors if its in the oil companies favor. You want to face the fact that on numerous occasions, massive price fluctuations in the price of oil have been the result of somebody somewhere taking unspeakable profits out of screwing tens of millions of consumers. These parasites don't make anything except everyone else poorer.
Re:Corporations are people by tehcyder · 2012-11-29 00:12 · Score: 1

You've got to have payment systems to attract the best & brightest
Why? You can either do your job well or you can't. Paying someone more doesn't make them any better at their job. A large organisation depends on all the people in it doing their jobs properly, it's not all down to the CEO.

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To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Re:Corporations are people by cbeaudry · 2012-11-29 00:39 · Score: 1

They can affect the prices at the pump by increasing refining prices. In Canada the refineries have double, even tripled refining costs over the last 5 years.
Re:Corporations are people by jimbolauski · 2012-11-29 03:59 · Score: 1

He is incarcerated for kidnapping and armed robbery from a completely different crime. He did pay and walked free for killing his wife.

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P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
Re:Corporations are people by digitalsolo · 2012-11-29 08:12 · Score: 1

You shut your mouth! CEOs are worth at least 10x the next best employee and at least 100, if not 1000x the average employee! Just look at their pay, you can see it clearly. If that's enough, just ask them, they'll tell you!

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Just another ignorant American.

No. by MyFirstNameIsPaul · 2012-11-28 09:15 · Score: 1

Removing caps on civil lawsuits will force firms to behave more responsibly.

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Re:No. by osu-neko · 2012-11-28 10:07 · Score: 1

But... but... they're job creators! Shouldn't we just let them do whatever they want?! Making them pay for their mistakes leaves them we less money to trickle out to us as jobs! /eyeroll

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"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Re:No. by cavreader · 2012-11-28 11:38 · Score: 1

The simple fact is that big corporations are job creators. They also generate a lot of tax revenue. US corporations operate under the highest corporate tax rate in the world. Corporations should be held accountable for any wrong doing but demonizing the big bad evil corporations 24x7 can put a lot of jobs in danger. The higher ups may have golden parachutes in case the corporation goes belly up but all the other rank and file employees don't. BP has close to 83,000 employees who would lose their job if the corporation was forced into bankruptcy by excessively high punitive monetary amounts. BP has been ordered to pay for the environmental cleanup, damages to local businesses effected by the spill, compensation to the families of those killed, hefty fines, and restrictions on their operations.
Re:No. by riverat1 · 2012-11-28 16:17 · Score: 1

The simple fact is that big corporations are job creators.
NO!
The real job creators are the consumers (I hate that word but it works here) who have the money to buy what the corporations (and other businesses) have to sell. No business is going to hire anyone unless they have someone to sell to. If there is demand for some product or service then the demand will be filled, be it by a corporation or an individual business, creating jobs. I'm not saying demand can't be created by coming up with some great new thing (i.e. smart phones) but unless a business thinks it can make a profit selling something it's not going to hire to produce it.
Re:No. by Seeteufel · 2012-11-29 00:07 · Score: 1

How do they create jobs? By moving factories oversees to Asia.
Re:No. by cavreader · 2012-11-30 13:14 · Score: 1

You are aware that the US is still the number one manufacturer in the world today? Even after supposedly shipping all the manufacturing jobs overseas.
Re:No. by Seeteufel · 2012-12-01 05:30 · Score: 1

Not according to UN data. http://unstats.un.org/unsd/snaama/dnllist.asp But anyway, the US is strong in agroexports.

Scapegoats by pbjones · 2012-11-28 09:15 · Score: 1

The company has escaped charges, only a few people are actually facing actual charges. I would guess that lots of people behind the company execs who were actually writing the lies will collect their big pay packets and not actually give a shit.

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Re:Scapegoats by buchner.johannes · 2012-11-28 09:23 · Score: 5, Insightful

The larger damage was not to manslaughter but to destroying a complete ecosystem - Privatizing profits and socializing losses in action. Companies trifle with natural resources because they know if it all fails, we will have to pull together to get out of it.
On the same note, why can people put a price on a pirated mp3, but not on a long-term damaged ecosystem?

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Re:Scapegoats by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-28 09:28 · Score: 4, Funny

It's escape goats, dude.
Re:Scapegoats by operagost · 2012-11-28 09:28 · Score: 2, Insightful

The ecosystem is not destroyed. The oil that entered the water is organic and constantly enters the oceans naturally. BP's negligence caused it to enter far more rapidly than the ecosystem could handle. This resulted in great immediate harm to sea life, but not permanent.

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Re:Scapegoats by GodfatherofSoul · 2012-11-28 09:32 · Score: 2

But, people being held responsible nonetheless. The next time an edict comes down the "pipe" to start drilling without proper precautions, the folks on point are more likely to CYA and either get official clearance from above (absolving them of blame) or just outright refuse to follow orders.

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Re:Scapegoats by MaskedSlacker · 2012-11-28 09:39 · Score: 1

Are you saying there's a goat on the lam?
Re:Scapegoats by Sulphur · 2012-11-28 09:42 · Score: 1

The larger damage was not to manslaughter but to destroying a complete ecosystem - Privatizing profits and socializing losses in action. Companies trifle with natural resources because they know if it all fails, we will have to pull together to get out of it.
On the same note, why can people put a price on a pirated mp3, but not on a long-term damaged ecosystem?
Copyright or patent the Gulf of Mexico then.
Re:Scapegoats by Quila · 2012-11-28 10:36 · Score: 1

I calculated the amount of oil once. Based on the size of the Gulf of Mexico, and the high estimate for how much oil was pumped in, IIRC it came out to the equivalent of about a teaspoon or so in an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Not exactly devastating.
Re:Scapegoats by MightyMartian · 2012-11-28 10:59 · Score: 4, Insightful

This was falsified a long time ago. Natural seepage into the Gulf nowhere equals what was puking out of that damaged well. The ecosystem has not returned to normal, and with the added known of the dispersal chemicals, no one can actually say what is happening or how long it will take for the oil to be absorbed. But this belief that bacteria just magically eat oil and in turn leave behind no deleterious side effects is pretty much akin to claiming that women's reproductive systems magically expunge rapists' sperm.
But you would have made a great member of the group at the beginning of Thank Your Smoking; the oil company representative who insists that oil spills just get eaten up by the ecosystem, and even vaguely hints that ecosystems actually benefit from it.
Actually, what you're post reminds of is a great and sadly departed Seattle comedy show called Almost Live, where there was fantastic sketch featuring a pro-tobacco lobbyist who said bizarre things like "Three out of four chiropactors agree that not only does smoking not harm you, but in fact places a protective coating on the lungs!" You could have done the followup sketch; "Three out of four industry 'researchers' insist that only do oil spills not harm the environment, they in fact feed the bacteria and make the environment even better!"

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The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Re:Scapegoats by TFAFalcon · 2012-11-28 11:09 · Score: 1

People make money by exploiting the ecosystem - why not just take their income as the value per year? So add up the income of every fisherman, tourism worker,.... Then multiply it by the time it's going to take the ecosystem to recover - a few hundred years or so? (guessing here). And that should be the actual damages. The punitives can start from there.
Re:Scapegoats by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-28 12:59 · Score: 1

The leaked oil has been moved outside the environment.
Re:Scapegoats by MightyMartian · 2012-11-28 14:58 · Score: 2

And you know this how? No researcher I know is claiming it has been removed.
Sitting mixed with dispersants at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico is no "removed".

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The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Re:Scapegoats by thegarbz · 2012-11-28 20:24 · Score: 1

Privatizing profits and socializing losses in action.
Spending in excess of $20bn of your profit sheet fixing the environment while local councils make interesting claims then squander the money which should have been destined at fixing the problem is exactly the opposite of what you say.
The Exxon Valdez is an example of what you say. But so far the profits and losses have been fully privatised. That's kind of how it works when the government gives you fines on top of your cleanup efforts.
Re:Scapegoats by cardpuncher · 2012-11-28 21:30 · Score: 1

The larger damage is actually caused by the consumers of the oil companies' products not by the oil companies themselves.
Take the entire amount of oil spilled over the course of human history and its contribution to environmental damage is neglible compared with that caused by burning oil and gas.
If US prosecutors really want to hurt some enivronmental criminals, they should confiscate the cars of the entire population.
Re:Scapegoats by abigsmurf · 2012-11-28 23:14 · Score: 1

"But this belief that bacteria just magically eat oil and in turn leave behind no deleterious side effects is pretty much akin to claiming that women's reproductive systems magically expunge rapists' sperm."

Making connections between two completely unconnected, controversial events in order to do an ad hominem is pretty much akin to saying that to saying that babies taste good with bbq sauce. You sick baby eater!
Re:Scapegoats by Seeteufel · 2012-11-29 00:08 · Score: 1

But it is true. Bacteria eat oil, and most spem gets discarded.
Re:Scapegoats by tehcyder · 2012-11-29 00:58 · Score: 1

I calculated the amount of oil once. Based on the size of the Gulf of Mexico, and the high estimate for how much oil was pumped in, IIRC it came out to the equivalent of about a teaspoon or so in an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Not exactly devastating.
The obvious flaw there is that the oil wasn't evenly fuckingly distributed throughout the whole body of the Gulf of Mexico. But apart from that, thanks, you've got a great legal future ahead of you.

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To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Re:Scapegoats by tehcyder · 2012-11-29 01:17 · Score: 1

Obama just needs someone to put the blame on. Doesn't matter if they are actually involved or not. Look how he threw that movie maker in prison, even though we now know that he had nothing to do with killing the diplomat
If you mean the creep that did the anti-Islam film, hadn't he broken his parole conditions or something?

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To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Re:Scapegoats by Quila · 2012-11-29 05:22 · Score: 1

Wind, waves, currents (differing surface and at depths), it spready pretty far. That teaspon won't distribute throughout the pool either, but in the larger picture it's still not much.
The most damage was done to our economy. The ocean will recover naturally better than we could ever hope to try ourselves. Nature is good at cleaning up natural substances.

Settle criminal charges? by SoupGuru · 2012-11-28 09:17 · Score: 3, Interesting

You can settle criminal charges with a load of cash? That doesn't seem right to me.

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What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable

Re:Settle criminal charges? by X0563511 · 2012-11-28 09:24 · Score: 1

Not if the government gets any earned profits during incarceration...

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Re:Settle criminal charges? by techno-vampire · 2012-11-28 09:28 · Score: 1

People can too settle criminal charges with a load of cash. They do it by pleading guilty and agreeing to pay a fine to avoid going to prison.

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Re:Settle criminal charges? by interkin3tic · 2012-11-28 09:29 · Score: 1

A company's... ahem... "life" would be money. In jail, basically part of your lifespan is given up. It kinda makes sense that criminal charges would result in a fine.

And by "kinda makes sense" I mean in the insane worlds of the judicial system and business.
Re:Settle criminal charges? by MaskedSlacker · 2012-11-28 09:40 · Score: 2

You've never heard of Hollywood accounting have you...
Re:Settle criminal charges? by vlm · 2012-11-28 09:42 · Score: 2

A company's... ahem... "life" would be money. In jail, basically part of your lifespan is given up. It kinda makes sense that criminal charges would result in a fine.
And by "kinda makes sense" I mean in the insane worlds of the judicial system and business.
From a back dated way of looking at the balance sheet, that kinda makes sense. The problem is looking at historical balance sheets for BP I don't think it took them very long to accumulate $1B on the balance sheet, so you're only taking away a small part of the companies life.
Now if you decided a human would go to prison for 10 years, and found a balance sheet from 10 years ago for BP and did the delta... of course this logic doesn't work so well with dying companies, HP or Kodak or places like that would be awarded a negative bill if they killed someone.
You could model it on revenue... plus or minus work release laws a human can't earn raw revenue for 10 years, so take away 10 years of revenue. The problem with that is some companies are so leveraged up that the equivalent of a night in the drunk tank would bankrupt them, then again in that financial state they are the walking dead anyway. Hmm.

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"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Re:Settle criminal charges? by Kergan · 2012-11-28 09:50 · Score: 2

Then again, sentencing its executives makes a lot of sense too.
There should be a fine and jail time for the execs who were responsible in the case of BP.
The same for banksters, for that matter.
Re:Settle criminal charges? by h4rr4r · 2012-11-28 09:52 · Score: 1

Far easier. Seize all revenue, not profits.
People don't generally collect a paycheck from their normal jobs while in jail. Hey, if corporations want to be people lets treat them like people.
Re:Settle criminal charges? by h4rr4r · 2012-11-28 09:56 · Score: 1

While that is generally possible for lesser charges I don't think it is normally the case for manslaughter charges.
Re:Settle criminal charges? by h4rr4r · 2012-11-28 10:08 · Score: 1

Easy way around that.
Take it out of revenue not profit. To ensure they do not cook the books calculate it out of the ratio of days in a year. So 180 days in prison would be nearly 50% of gross revenue for the year. To ensure no cross year shenanigans also require it to be no smaller than 40% of the previous years.
Re:Settle criminal charges? by h4rr4r · 2012-11-28 10:15 · Score: 1

Sure, but he plead guilty to a lessor charge. So your example is not that at all.
Re:Settle criminal charges? by MightyMartian · 2012-11-28 11:01 · Score: 1

Not if all the employees, executives, boards of directors and major shareholders were to find themselves sitting in cells without private toilets and sharing the space with a really big guy with arms as big as tree trunks who insists "You an' me are gonna be the bestest of friends."
Believe me, if that were the consequences, corporate governance would be a whole different bag of worms.

--
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Re:Settle criminal charges? by JohnFen · 2012-11-28 11:04 · Score: 1

A company's... ahem... "life" would be money
No, a corporation's "life" is its corporate charter. A death sentence to a corporation is the revocation of the corporate charter. This used to be the way we punished even huge corporations that egregiously misbehaved. It's way past time to bring those days back.
Re:Settle criminal charges? by h4rr4r · 2012-11-29 01:53 · Score: 1

Why would they work for free?
The company would still have to pay them.
If the government dissolved the company, it would simply sell off its assets and operations. This happens all the time during bankruptcy.
Creditors, partners and employees can be paid out of existing funds or with loans. Just because you have to pay a fine does not mean you don't have to pay your mortgage.
Slavery does not enter into it. This is simply my attempt to put a corporation in jail.

Getting charged with... by Synerg1y · 2012-11-28 09:18 · Score: 2

Doesn't mean conviction and punishment. The reason corporations tend to get fined rather than individuals getting charged is stuff like distributed responsibility and less than stellar organizational hierarchies & less than clear job responsibilities. Basically, it's like playing pin the tail on the donkey.

A judge also may set bond conditions and other restrictions on the defendants, but the workers don't face arrest ahead of time, their lawyers said.

Not your typical criminal manslaughter treatment.

Re:Getting charged with... by Synerg1y · 2012-11-28 10:23 · Score: 1

Doesn't sound like something you can prove "beyond a reasonable doubt" does it?

Umm... by Jintsui · 2012-11-28 09:19 · Score: 1

I will be please if they ever get put in jail, which is highly unlikely..

Not really by Safety+Cap · 2012-11-28 09:21 · Score: 5, Insightful

When "BP" has to spend 180 days in prison like a regular person convicted of manslaughter then I'll believe it.

Oh, and I'd want BP to be a registered felon, so no government jobs/contracts, no leaving the country and no crossing state lines without the court's okay.

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Yeah, right.

Re:Not really by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-28 09:33 · Score: 2

Well guess what--BP is currently banned from government contracts. Would you like to add another condition to justify your outrage?
Re:Not really by MaskedSlacker · 2012-11-28 09:37 · Score: 4, Interesting

When "BP" has to spend 180 days in prison like a regular person convicted of manslaughter then I'll believe it.
I'd settle for a fine equal to 180 days gross revenue (effectively the same).
Re:Not really by dave562 · 2012-11-28 09:51 · Score: 5, Informative

You got your second wish. The EPA denied BP the right to bid on oil contracts.
http://blog.chron.com/lorensteffy/2012/11/in-suspending-bp-epa-does-what-drilling-regulators-would-not/
Re:Not really by ThatsMyNick · 2012-11-28 10:23 · Score: 2

Too bad. Now BP has to create a proxy to submit bids for them.
Re:Not really by jnmontario · 2012-11-28 10:58 · Score: 1

They don't need to worry - they have juicy contracts set up in Canada now to search for, and drill, oil off the coast of one of the most active fisheries in the world (CDN/US Atlantic coast). What could go wrong?!
Re:Not really by jnmontario · 2012-11-28 10:59 · Score: 2

I meant to link this in the above post: http://thechronicleherald.ca/business/201348-us-ban-on-bp-deals-worries-ns
Re:Not really by Pseudonym · 2012-11-28 11:09 · Score: 4, Insightful

BP is a multinational company, just like every large company that you think is "an American company".

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sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
Re:Not really by nephilimsd · 2012-11-28 15:20 · Score: 1

Why would I think of "British Petroleum" as an "American company?" They are traded on the London Exchange, not the NYSE.
Re:Not really by sapphire+wyvern · 2012-11-28 17:09 · Score: 1

It's only equivalent if the government pays BP's gross expenses for the 180 days as well.
Prison beds, food and water are provided out of the government's budgets, after all. (Even if it's indirectly through a contractor)
Re:Not really by psiclops · 2012-11-28 18:07 · Score: 1

noone insinuated they were an American company or that others would think they were.
There was a statement that they wouldn't have been treated as harshly if they were an American company - which was replied with a statement that all the majors are multinationals and not American so there would be little difference had they originated elsewhere.

--
i spent five minutes thinking and all i got was this crappy sig
Re:Not really by kevmeister · 2012-11-28 19:15 · Score: 1

Why would anyone think that British Petrol (BP) is an American company? Next thig someone will tell me that they buy gas at (Royal Dutch) Shell to "Buy American".

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Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer, Retired
Re:Not really by shutdown+-p+now · 2012-11-28 19:54 · Score: 2

Extending this analogy further, it would be gross expenses at the absolute minimum of remaining operable. In other words, minimal wage paid to a single guy who is the CEO. After all, when the government puts a guy in prison, it doesn't pay for his wife's bills or his car insurance.
Re:Not really by thegarbz · 2012-11-28 20:34 · Score: 1

Personally I think the EPA set a dangerous precedent with this statement:

BP’s lack of business integrity as demonstrated by the company’s conduct with regard to the Deepwater Horizon blowout, explosion, oil spill, and response.
Emphasis on the last part. Exxon Mobil was out of pocket about $3bn after many a lawsuit and was fined less than $100m in the end and they get away free. Now BP in an attempt to clean up their mess from the onset setup a restoration fund of $20bn, sent hords of people from all over the world to the cleanup effort, setup their own internal department dedicated to the restoration of the Gulf Coast, and has paid several billion more in fines, but yet gets excluded from a government contract.
In my eyes that kind of says when your well springs a leak you may as well do the bare minimum since if you put some effort and capital into the disaster you still end up in the shit.
Re:Not really by dunkelfalke · 2012-11-28 20:46 · Score: 1

BP only used to mean British Petrol, that changed after the fusion with Amoco (American Oil Company, by the way). So yes, BP is also an American company.

--
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Re:Not really by Xest · 2012-11-28 21:12 · Score: 2

Yes, the problem is that during the incident, Obama repeatedly referred to them as British Petroleum and exploited the situation for his own political gain by explicitly making it about "foreign" companies by resorting to what all politicians do when they need a popularity boost- resorting to populism and nationalism.
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad Obama won the 2008 election, and I'm glad he won this latest one, but the whole BP incident is one of those few situations where as someone from the UK, I'd rather have seen a Republican running the show, because the Republicans at least do us in the UK the courtesy of giving us a bit of respect given that we've sacrificed 100s of our soldiers lives for Americas wars in the last 10 years.
So yes you're absolutely right, it is as much an American company as anything, but that didn't change the fact Obama made it all about "us" vs. "them" as if there was some foreign element to it all.
Re:Not really by Xest · 2012-11-28 23:19 · Score: 1

I'm trying to find more information about this, the news that broke also states that BP's affiliates in this incident are banned from government contracts, but I'm trying to find what affiliates are involved.
Specifically, I'm wondering, does this mean Halliburton is also now banned from bidding on government contracts as they were complicit in the spill?
Re:Not really by Nyder · 2012-11-28 23:41 · Score: 1

Well guess what--BP is currently banned from government contracts. Would you like to add another condition to justify your outrage?
That the board of directors and the presidents and VP's and everyone else in management be required to do 20-30 hours a week volunteering to clean up oil spills and other oil disasters...

--
Be seeing you...
Re:Not really by tehcyder · 2012-11-29 00:25 · Score: 1

When "BP" has to spend 180 days in prison like a regular person convicted of manslaughter then I'll believe it.
Rather more than 180 days for manslaughter surely? Even here in the wishy-washy liberal UK you can get life for manslaughter; that's rare, but certainly a few years would normally be the minimum.
Anyway, that aside, your comment is really silly. There is no exact equivalent of incarceration for a non-corporeal entity. That's why they fine companies large amounts instead: it's only things which affect their profit that "hurt" a business.

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To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Re:Not really by tehcyder · 2012-11-29 00:28 · Score: 1

A company is not magically split into "management" and "other". It's a whole. If the CEO is responsible, then so is the office cleaner. Sorry, but this is the correct line of argument that was used at the Nuremberg Trials. The concentration camp guard doesn't get to blame the Camp Commandant and get off scot free himself.

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To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Re:Not really by tehcyder · 2012-11-29 00:38 · Score: 1

That is actually a wonderful idea. BP would essentially shut down. Their employees will have to go work elsewhere. They would go out of business and better companies would take their place and good employees. It would be a natural deterrent to big companies.
I wonder if you'd be saying this if (say) the EU tried to force a US company out of business?

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To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Re:Not really by pnutjam · 2012-11-29 01:55 · Score: 1

An office cleaner is hardly a camp guard. In this case the camp guards appear to have been killed by their recklessness.

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Cheap storage VM.
Re:Not really by jimbolauski · 2012-11-29 03:55 · Score: 1

Imprisoning a cooperation would just be locking the doors and freezing all assets of the company while they are imprisoned. The government would pay for maintenance on properties and minimal utilities to stop any damage (frozen water pipes).

--
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
Re:Not really by subnomine · 2012-11-29 06:47 · Score: 1

Courts? We don't need Big Brother to watch the big-wig CEO's. Big Brother is their corrupt brother. We need Little Brother--the same public scrutiny that celebrities face. Paparazzi.
Re:Not really by Pseudonym · 2012-11-29 11:56 · Score: 1

"BP" used to stand for "British Petroleum". Today, it officially does not abbreviate anything, just like "KFC".

--
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
Re:Not really by Xest · 2012-12-02 08:24 · Score: 1

Sure but the point is we made it our war to back the Americans up rather than because it was of any inherent benefit to us other than gaining favour with America.
There was no benefit to us other than helping America, presumably in the hope that America would return the favour in kind some day.

"Is this the start of companies being forced to.." by Gaygirlie · 2012-11-28 09:24 · Score: 3, Insightful

"...take responsibility for their actions?"

No. This is just to appeal to environmentalists and the general populace, and will be a very rare occurrence. I verily doubt you'll see a single company in the next 10 years being forced to "take responsibility."

Re:The "start"? by X0563511 · 2012-11-28 09:29 · Score: 1

So log in, and tweak your homepage settings to not include 'your rights online'

Problem solved.

--
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...

So if we can hold the oil company accountable... by scorp1us · 2012-11-28 09:29 · Score: 4, Insightful

Why can't we hold the financial industry accountable and start putting bankers in Federal pound-me-in-the-ass prisons?

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Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.

Re:A company charged with manslaughter. REALLY? by MozeeToby · 2012-11-28 09:30 · Score: 1

But, how on earth does a company that is ever found guilty of a manslaughter charge ever serve prison time???

Lots of options: A) Close the doors, permanently or temporarily B) Fines equal to multiple years worth of profit, equivalent to the wages lost when a person is in prison C) Massive government oversight into their operations from the boardroom down to the people manning the rigs, paid for by BP through fines D) Government seizure of assets up to and including the entire company, to be sold off to the highest bidder.

"Oh noes! That screws the shareholders!" Yeah, that's the point. We've already decided, as a society, that shareholders are who companies are really accountable to. The risk that your company gets lots of people killed, destroys ecosystems and regional economies should be factored into your share price.

Re:Stupid summary by Jeremy+Erwin · 2012-11-28 09:32 · Score: 4, Interesting

A few states, such as Australia and the UK have such a thing as corporate manslaughter. Not every murderer acts on his own initiative, sometimes he has his employer's interests at heart. UK version

No: of truthful notifications by holophrastic · 2012-11-28 09:32 · Score: 1

The whole point of the justice system isn't to punish people for making mistakes. It's to punish them for intentionally making mistakes as a deterant.

In this case, the problem wasn't the spill -- it's certainly not something that they did intentionally, and hence they needn't be discouraged from spilling again. The problem is that they didn't follow through with the obvious safety procedure of screaming "fire!" and "get out of the way!" and "the oil is coming!".

Not screaming -- or not screaming soon enough loud enough -- is something that they did intentionally. Had they done so, they could have saved people from trouble.

So no, this isn't the start of companies being forced to take responsibility for their actions. This is the start of companies being forced to switch into life-saving mode following a dramatic event.

This isn't stopping drivers from hitting pedestrians. This is stopping drivers who, having hit a pedenstrian, from running away instead of helping that injured pedestrian. (sorry, you just gotta do the car analogy)

Re:No: of truthful notifications by h4rr4r · 2012-11-28 10:02 · Score: 1

I would say blaming them for a spill is fine as well. You are still responsible for cleaning up the mistakes you make even if they are not intentional.
Re:No: of truthful notifications by holophrastic · 2012-11-28 10:19 · Score: 1

Oh certainly, but that's not a criminal offense. That just a professional obligation.
Re:No: of truthful notifications by h4rr4r · 2012-11-29 01:55 · Score: 1

Failing to clean it up can be a criminal offense. Go spill a few thousand gallons of oil on your neighbors property and see what the courts say.
Re:No: of truthful notifications by holophrastic · 2012-11-29 02:56 · Score: 1

still not the subject here. and it's illegal to avoid any professional obligation. hence the word obligation.

Re:Death Penalty by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-28 09:36 · Score: 1

Back in the day, well before the ''companys are people" nonsense, the 'corporate death penalty' (revoking a corporate charter) was used fairly often, and for much lesser offenses than this. No idea why it's fallen out of favor.

Drop, meet Bucket by sl4shd0rk · 2012-11-28 09:37 · Score: 3, Interesting

With over $150 Billion in equity* it's a laughable settlement considering the gross negligence BP should be cited for.

[*] - http://www.bp.com/extendedsectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9021229&contentId=7039276

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Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!

Re:Drop, meet Bucket by epp_b · 2012-11-28 09:58 · Score: 2

Would be nice if us proles could get out of a manslaughter charge by relinquishing a mere 3% of our equity.
Re:Drop, meet Bucket by abigsmurf · 2012-11-28 10:56 · Score: 1

Fine a multinational company too much and eventually it'll be cheaper for them to abandon the country and skip on the fine.

40,000 people out of a job and the 2nd largest source of oil and gas for the US being shut down (even if the assets were seized, it would take a long time for production to start up again).
Re:Drop, meet Bucket by tehcyder · 2012-11-29 01:42 · Score: 1

Would be nice if us proles could get out of a manslaughter charge by relinquishing a mere 3% of our equity.
But just think, if you owed tons of money on credit cards and had negative equity on your house, the government would have to pay YOU.

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To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it

Means Little Until by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-28 09:40 · Score: 1

Corporations can be financially executed for killing their employees or through negligence causing an environmental catastrophe!
We here on the West Coast of Canada are under extreme pressure to put a pipe line through some of the most important salmon habitat in the world. In the future who would be responsible if here like in Michigan the oil did major damage to our salmon habit on rivers like the Maurice which it is set to cross. A severe spill in this watershed at the wrong time of year with high water flow would decimate the entire Bulkley River, and the Skeena from the confluence with the Bulkley for years!

Or a major spill in the coastal habitat that the tankers and terminal would use could make the feasco of Exxon Valdezlook like a minor mess by comparison. The tidal flows and currents in the proposed area of tanker traffic would make containment of the spill completely impossible!

Firstly the only reason for this pipe line is to pad the pockets of oil and pipe line companies like BP, secondly all this pipeline does is offshore the refining and secondary industries created by refined bitumen out of Canada and North America, the same way shipping out raw logs instead of manufacturing wood products already here does.

Corporations are not held to task for their actions and it is time that they become so, whether that be killing the economy of a nation by raping the resources and returning a pittance to the County of origin or killing their employees through greed and the economic expedience of low safety standards.

Can you blame Chavez for kicking the jerks out of Venezuela? Sure he is an idiot and a dictator but being a dictator and moron was not the reason he rose so high on Bush the second and Dick Chaney's hit list.

Re:Means Little Until by tehcyder · 2012-11-29 01:51 · Score: 1

Can you blame Chavez for kicking the jerks out of Venezuela? Sure he is an idiot and a dictator
He's a pretty fucking funny sort of dictator if he wins in a closely fought but honest democratic election. I know he's a fucking socialist and therefore evil, but you do need to try a bit harder.

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To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it

Oh please. by Strykar · 2012-11-28 09:40 · Score: 1

Their PR firm get a clue? I'll believe it when I hear sentencing.

That's Why You Drill in China by eldavojohn · 2012-11-28 09:40 · Score: 2

They should have followed ConocoPhillips and their plans in China. Not only will they not face criminal charges, the government decided not to let the state controlled media report on it until it slipped out via a blog. Darn it! If only the government could control everything, we wouldn't have to worry about everyone else finding out about a little 320 square mile oil spill.

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My work here is dung.

KILL THE WIND! by Thud457 · 2012-11-28 09:45 · Score: 1

Finn warned us that the matrix was full of mambos 'n' shit.
Looks like the demons are escaping into the real world now.
How much longer until we're worshiping disencarnate beings in boxes and supplicating for their guidance?

--

the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

Where's the apology? by Squirmy+McPhee · 2012-11-28 09:46 · Score: 3, Funny

Has Rep. Joe Barton apologized to BP for this yet?

You can now pay fines for manslaughter? by h4rr4r · 2012-11-28 09:47 · Score: 2

Does this mean rich people can just kill the poor and pay fines now?

Taking a life illegally should at least warrant some jail time.

Re:You can now pay fines for manslaughter? by pearl298 · 2012-11-28 12:04 · Score: 1

Does this mean rich people can just kill the poor and pay fines now?
Taking a life illegally should at least warrant some jail time.
I agree, in tthe case of a corporation the equivalent would be to hand over all operations (below the executive suites) to a consortuim of competotors to run for the length of the sentence, under court supervision of course. Just like what would happen to you and me in the same situation!
Any profits for that period would go to "reasonably compensate" the consortium.
The evidence is that this arose out of corporate decision making so a corporate wide penalty would appear to be approprite.
Re:You can now pay fines for manslaughter? by tehcyder · 2012-11-29 01:53 · Score: 1

Does this mean rich people can just kill the poor and pay fines now?
Taking a life illegally should at least warrant some jail time.
You can't put "BP plc" in prison and it would be arbitrary just to jail the CEO or something.
Corporations are financial entities and can only be punished financially.

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To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Re:You can now pay fines for manslaughter? by Nethemas+the+Great · 2012-11-29 08:21 · Score: 1

Does this mean rich people can just kill the poor and pay fines now?
Couldn't they before?

--
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once ... with negative results.

cognitive dissonance plus ultra by Thud457 · 2012-11-28 09:49 · Score: 1

shareholders

So fractional slavery is acceptable?!!! I thought we settled this 150+ years ago.

This whole "companies are people, too" road leads to madness.

--

the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

Re:cognitive dissonance plus ultra by MozeeToby · 2012-11-28 10:07 · Score: 1

It doesn't enslave the shareholders, it punishes them for their roll in a crime. They are financially supporting a company that performs illegal actions. They have the right to vote new directors, new policies, new mission statements, and in extreme cases they have the right to sue if their interests aren't be met. If all else fails, they have the right to sell their stock to someone else.
Imagine it this way: I've got a buddy who used to work in the oil business. He's got land that he knows has oil under it, and says to me that for $10,000 he can cut a lot of corners, take a lot of risks, but he'll get that oil pumping and give me 50% of the profits. As a partner in that venture, I would absolutely be held responsible if his illegal drilling practices killed people and caused an ecological disaster.

also, EPA bans BP from federal contracts by cathector · 2012-11-28 09:50 · Score: 1

also today:
the EPA has banned BP from federal contracts.

Re:also, EPA bans BP from federal contracts by Seeteufel · 2012-11-29 00:09 · Score: 1

I think the EU should envoke the WTO...

Re:Betteridge's law: no. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-28 09:54 · Score: 2, Insightful

This presumes that board members, major investors, and the CEO were both aware of, and actively refusing to do something about safety and environmental concerns.

In a company the size of BP, it's flatly unreasonable to expect that the board & CEO will be aware of every minor decision and safety concern anywhere in the company the moment it is raised. Now, if there is evidence that those people were negligent in responding to, addressing, or correcting issues that they were clearly informed of, then you'd have a good argument for "jail terms" for these people. Without it, the blame rests with the people who FAILED to raise those safety concerns, or ignored those safety concerns, when it was their job to care about and address them - i.e., the supervisors, and the executive being charged.

This "string up the board" argument is as stupid as it is misguided. It plays well to the idiotic "Occupy Wall Street" crowd; thankfully it doesn't play as well to an educated judiciary.

BP denied EPA contracts by dave562 · 2012-11-28 09:55 · Score: 4, Informative

The more important and related story is that due to this, the EPA has suspended BP from any further contracts with the Federal government.

http://blog.chron.com/lorensteffy/2012/11/in-suspending-bp-epa-does-what-drilling-regulators-would-not/

I'm sure it will not be long before BP is crying about unions and regulation and it being too expensive to do business in America.

Re:BP denied EPA contracts by Uberbah · 2012-11-28 14:52 · Score: 2

As an investor, this has made me very wary of companies with too much exposure in the US, particularly ones that are seen as 'foreign' and are thus easy for politicians and the press to make an example of them as they have with BP, Audo, Toyota, Samsung, etc.
So rather than invest in companies that don't have a worse safety rating than all their competitors - combined - you'd rather just invest in jurisdictions where they don't give a rats ass how many workers they kill or how many billions of dollars in damages they cause.
Nice to know where your priorities are.
Re:BP denied EPA contracts by Uberbah · 2012-11-29 04:04 · Score: 2

I try and invest in large corporates (preferably with a London listing, for tax reasons) with a long track record of "not fucking up". Its pretty widely known that a really good way of "fucking up" is to be a non-US company with significant operations in the US. Between insane unions, opportunist politicians, incompetent regulators, frenzied media and a robustly patriotic culture you really don't want to be getting into that without the protection of a shell company to protect the parent and carry an "we are an American company" branding message.

Now you're just insulting our intelligence as well as your own. BP is just one of a host of international oil companies, but only BP had a safety record that was worse than all of its competitors combined. What does that have to do with American unions, media culture, etc? Jack and shit, and Jack just left town.

You can settle criminal charges now? by Sydin · 2012-11-28 09:59 · Score: 3, Insightful

That's nice. So go right ahead and take up that manslaughter hobby you've always dreamed of! After all it was only what, 11 people killed? so $4.5 billion divided by 11: that means you can murder anybody you want for the low low price of only ~$409 million!. What are you waiting for!? ...I fucking hate this country.

Re:You can settle criminal charges now? by LiquidAvatar · 2012-11-28 14:10 · Score: 2

That's nice. So go right ahead and take up that manslaughter hobby you've always dreamed of! After all it was only what, 11 people killed? so $4.5 billion divided by 11: that means you can murder anybody you want for the low low price of only ~$409 million!. What are you waiting for!? ...I fucking hate this country.
To be fair, they qualified for the bulk discount.

--
It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.
-Voltaire
Re:You can settle criminal charges now? by MultiPak · 2012-11-28 18:47 · Score: 1

In 1991, the local Bhopal authorities charged Anderson, who had retired in 1986, with manslaughter, a crime that carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. He was declared a fugitive from justice by the Chief Judicial Magistrate of Bhopal on 1 February 1992 for failing to appear at the court hearings in a culpable homicide case in which he was named the chief defendant. Orders were passed to the Government of India to press for an extradition from the United States. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of the decision of the lower federal courts in October 1993, meaning that victims of the Bhopal disaster could not seek damages in a US court.
Re:You can settle criminal charges now? by thegarbz · 2012-11-28 20:21 · Score: 1

So go right ahead and take up that manslaughter hobby ... that means you can murder anybody you want ... I fucking hate this country.
Don't worry mate I hate your country too. Mainly because your education system gives you the idea that manslaughter and murder are the same thing.
No child left behind my arse.

After the fact by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-28 10:01 · Score: 1

The charges are for actions taken after the incident, not for failing to prevent it.

Re:Betteridge's law: no. by h4rr4r · 2012-11-28 10:10 · Score: 1

Because they had no idea this was going on and no way to act against it.

The customer is always the least information actor, thus the least responsible.

No souls to damn by minstrelmike · 2012-11-28 12:12 · Score: 1

"Corporations have no souls to damn; no bodies to kick." They've been an issue for centuries.
But it's extremely hard to get minions to testify against their capo. A murder charge is a wonderful incentive.

Your rage will never be slaked by gelfling · 2012-11-28 13:19 · Score: 1

So just admit that. Kill all the executives? Fine them a petatrillion dollars? Outlaw all oil? Pay everyone who lives on the Gulf a billion dollars a head? Arrest charge and imprison everyone on the planet who can spell "BP"?

Feel free.

Human Life's Pricetag... by mlw4428 · 2012-11-28 13:34 · Score: 1

Well disregarding any of the SEC's charges each of the 11 workers killed is worth approx $409,090,909. So Bill Gates could literally slaughter (at a networth of $66 Billion as of September 2012) about 1,774 people. He could just kill all of those people. That's the equivalent of 73 Hunger Games and hilariously the actual Hunger Games trilogy described 75 games. So we're off by 2 Hunger Games due to inflation. Fantastic.

Woohoo! by rsilvergun · 2012-11-28 16:08 · Score: 1

A couple middle managers implementing policies given to them from on high are gonna get in dutch! Wow, the System works! USA! USA!

On another note, until we start fining these companies out of existence and holding CEOs as accountable as engineers this will go on. When profits from crime > fines folks it doesn't take a genius to figure out what you're gonna do. Once again though I'll remind everyone that we can't do that because at the end of the day, the people really responsible for this are our rulers. We just stopped acknowledging that fact around the turn of last century...

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Re:Death Penalty by riverat1 · 2012-11-28 16:28 · Score: 1

The Board of Directors too.

Double standards, Union Carbide , India Bhopal by MultiPak · 2012-11-28 18:10 · Score: 1

When you consider Union Carbide in Bopal killed 8000 (1984) on the first day, with estimates higher than 30000 knocking around for total dead. Hopelessly contaminated land and ground water and still the population are suffering after 25 years. No idiot want's to belittle the Oil spill, it should be taken at face value. Bhopal was abandoned as it was not in their backyard, and the real costs to compensate personal and economic, and to clean up to an American standard would be staggering. $4.5 Billion Dollars could not achieve this. Average Compensation Sum (US $): Personal Injury Claim $455 Death Claim $1128 In 2007 total award was $281 million To me, $4.5 Billion Dollars could be better assigned else where, a god fearing country, obviously does not fear god, as I do not.

Re:Double standards, Union Carbide , India Bhopal by MultiPak · 2012-11-28 18:50 · Score: 2

In 1991, the local Bhopal authorities charged Anderson, who had retired in 1986, with manslaughter, a crime that carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. He was declared a fugitive from justice by the Chief Judicial Magistrate of Bhopal on 1 February 1992 for failing to appear at the court hearings in a culpable homicide case in which he was named the chief defendant. Orders were passed to the Government of India to press for an extradition from the United States. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of the decision of the lower federal courts in October 1993, meaning that victims of the Bhopal disaster could not seek damages in a US cour

Re:Transoceans by Seeteufel · 2012-11-29 00:06 · Score: 1

I though British Petroleum was British???

Re:Transoceans by Some+Bitch · 2012-11-29 00:30 · Score: 2

1. BP does not stand for British Petroleum and hasn't since the late 90s when American Oil Company and British Petroleum merged to format BP AMOCO. The merged company later changed the name to BP, not short for anything.

2. More BP stock is owned by US companies and individuals than British.

BP is multinational, the HQ of the parent company might be in London but it's owned by Americans.

Re:Death Penalty by tehcyder · 2012-11-29 01:20 · Score: 1

You do realise that the company is owned by the shareholders, not the directors, right?

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To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it

Re:Betteridge's law: no. by tehcyder · 2012-11-29 01:34 · Score: 1

This presumes that board members, major investors, and the CEO were both aware of, and actively refusing to do something about safety and environmental concerns.

In a company the size of BP, it's flatly unreasonable to expect that the board & CEO will be aware of every minor decision and safety concern anywhere in the company the moment it is raised. Now, if there is evidence that those people were negligent in responding to, addressing, or correcting issues that they were clearly informed of, then you'd have a good argument for "jail terms" for these people. Without it, the blame rests with the people who FAILED to raise those safety concerns, or ignored those safety concerns, when it was their job to care about and address them - i.e., the supervisors, and the executive being charged.

This "string up the board" argument is as stupid as it is misguided. It plays well to the idiotic "Occupy Wall Street" crowd; thankfully it doesn't play as well to an educated judiciary.

The whole point about a corporation is that it is not just an assembly of individuals. I know this annoys all you Rugged American Individualists but it's true. If you didn't have limited liability corporations, then the government would just have to sue/prosecute/fine/imprison each shareholder individually, and they would say exactly the same thing as the CEO, namely "it wasn't my personal fault".

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To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it

Re:The "start"? by tehcyder · 2012-11-29 01:39 · Score: 1

So log in, and tweak your homepage settings to not include 'your rights online'

Problem solved.

GP didn't say he wanted no legal/rights stories, he just said that he would like them to be "edited" by someone who had a vague clue what they were talking about.

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To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it

Sweet! by Vrtigo1 · 2012-12-05 09:36 · Score: 1

You can financially settle CRIMINAL charges now? Sweet!

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BP and Three Executives Facing Criminal Charges Over Oil Spill

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