BP and Three Executives Facing Criminal Charges Over Oil Spill 238
New submitter SleazyRidr writes "Finally some news that will please a lot of the Slashdot crowd: a company has been charged with manslaughter! BP has been charged with manslaughter following the Macondo Incident. 'BP has agreed to pay $4.5 billion to settle the criminal charges and related Securities and Exchange Commission charges.' Two of the rig supervisors and a BP executive are also facing jail time. The supervisors are charged with 'failing to alert on-shore managers at the time they observed clear signs that the Macondo well was not secure and that oil and gas were flowing into the well,' and the supervisor is charged with 'obstruction of Congress and making false statements to law enforcement officials about the amount of oil flowing from the well.' Is this the start of companies being forced to take responsibility for their actions?"
Re:Corporations are people (Score:4, 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:Not really (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/ [chron.com]
BP denied EPA contracts (Score:5, 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/ [chron.com]
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:Corporations are people (Score:3, 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.