Hallibuton Pleads Guilty To Destroying Simulation Data From 2010 Gulf Oil Spill 104
An anonymous reader writes "Oilfield services giant Halliburton will plead guilty to destroying computer test results that had been sought as evidence in the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the Justice Department announced Thursday. Company officials threw out test results that showed 'little difference' between the number of devices Halliburton said was needed to center the cement casing in the well at the heart of the disaster and the number well owner BP installed, according to court papers. The issue has been key point of contention between the two companies in hearings and litigation ever since the April 2010 blowout. BP and Halliburton are still battling over responsibility for the disaster in a New Orleans federal courtroom. BP had no comment on the plea agreement Thursday evening."
Re:Knowledge and the ocean. (Score:4, Insightful)
Cutesy, but the Gulf oil spill was 100% man made. Climate change is man made.
We're at a point in development where we know just enough to be dangerous. And we have a huge industry that's used to f*** up the planet at the whims of clueless and greedy economists.
The nature is big and resilient but not infinitely so. And when the shit starts hitting the fan the poor people who're least responsible for it bear the brunt of the burder, as always. Millions and millions will die thanks to the actions of the 1%.
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"We're at a point in development where we know just enough to be dangerous."
So you're saying that there are clueless and greedy economists involved in Industry, but that their are none in Climate Science?
Or, putting it a different way, Climate Scientists are not included in the above general statement, however commercial scientists are?
I agree 100% with the above statement. And I am confident in applying it across the board. That fact has ramifications.
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Greedy economists?
I'm trying to figure out for the life of me how an economist profits off of this one. All they really do is observe and model how the economy works, without necessarily partaking in it as part of their job title.
And the actions of the 1%, who is the 1%? The richest 1%? That includes people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet right, the same people who dump billions into trying to solve world hunger, ending diseases, and researching next generation green energy?
Or are you talking about 1% of
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People only say "The 1%" because it's easier to say than what it really is, which is closer to the 0.001%, but the concept is not difficult to grasp. The vast majority of wealth and power is concentrated in very few hands.
But somehow, even this simple concept seems to have gone over your head, and you think that it makes sense to lump someone making $40k/year (in the US, I assume) into the same group as someone making tens of millions per year. At this point I'm going to assume that your feigned ignorance
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... really?
You know, your revised figure still includes basically all of the major contributors to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.
Of course, if you want to argue that all of them are secretly plotting to take over the world and/or ruin your life somehow, be my guest, but that view had no basis in reality. Unless of course you believe that vaccines, GMO, and nuclear energy are all plots to oppress the poor, and if so I truly pity how miserable you must needlessly make yourself feel every day.
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But the NSA won't read your comment, cause they only track the metadata. And everyone knows metadata can never be changed.
Re:Knowledge and the ocean. (Score:4, Insightful)
"Climate change is man made."
Sooooooo...., the climate didn't change on earth before man appeared here. REALLY?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq4Bc2WCsdE [youtube.com]
Don't be an idiot. Of course it did. For many reasons, not one single factor. What's of concern is that there's a new player at the table: human activity. And whether it's altering climate fast enough to damage human life. And possibly render species extinct at a rate not seen in 65 million years.
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What's of concern is that there's a new player at the table: human activity.
Ok, so it's a "concern". I imagine some future historians will be interested in all the word games and rationalizations that pro-AGW advocates have used over the years.
And whether it's altering climate fast enough to damage human life. And possibly render species extinct at a rate not seen in 65 million years.
Let's note two things. First, there are basic behavior and structural changes that can be made right now which would greatly mitigate the alleged effects of AGW, even if we never do anything about AGW itself. For example, if
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Your entire post can be summed up in one word:
Projection.
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Sooooooo...., the climate didn't change on earth before man appeared here. REALLY?
Sooooooo......, you're a climate scientist who has spent a substantial part of their life studying the effects that man made atmospheric pollution have on the Earth's climate? No? Then forgive me if I ignore everything you say, and instead listen to people who are qualified to talk on this subject.
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News for ya asshole...neither are you.
All the arguing that goes on here about AGW is nothing more that a bunch of stupid Face Painting Homers shouting that their team is smarter and better. That includes you.
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The consensus among scientists is that climate change is real and man has contributed significantly to it.
The arguing around here is about whether to believe them or not and whether we need regulations in place to help the situation.
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Yes, I wish the debate could get past who and what is causing it and move on to how to mitigate or reduce it. Course we've wasted so much time now. We had an opportunity to provide a good example to developing nations but instead we're providing a bad example and surprirse, their environments are complete crap. Look at what China had to do to get the air quality up for the Olympics.
It''s baffling that the argument is still whether we are affecting nature when there are examples you can actually see all ove
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Soooo.... Climate change occurred for the exact same reason and only that reason every time it has happened in the past x billion years on the planet?
Insightful?! Is Slashdot selling modpoints to Halliburton and BP or something?
what don't we know? (Score:2, Interesting)
from TFA:
They 'took a deal' in the parlance of the criminal justice world.
I'm wondering what else is out there. Also in TFA I read that BP was 'conv
Re: what don't we know? (Score:3, Funny)
Plead guilty to destroying evidence and convicted of manslaughter ... and no one will go to jail. Try that in non-corporate America.
Re: what don't we know? (Score:5, Insightful)
Plead guilty to destroying evidence and convicted of manslaughter ... and no one will go to jail.
Yep.
If the order was given to destroy data then there HAS to be a person who gave that order. It's time they were hunted down.
Presumably it's the same person who's now telling them to plead guilty (and save his ass from further investigation).
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If the order was given to destroy data then there HAS to be a person who gave that order. It's time they were hunted down.
The thing is, this being Halliburton, it's possible that the person that gave the order to destroy evidence has already gotten away with much more heinous crimes and effectively has immunity from prosecution for anything he does. And if they try to hunt him down, he might shoot them in the face.
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The thing is, this being Halliburton, it's virtually guaranteed that the person that gave the order to destroy evidence has already gotten away with much more heinous crimes and effectively has immunity from prosecution for anything he does.
FTFY
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If the order was given to destroy data then there HAS to be a person who gave that order. It's time they were hunted down.
The thing is, this being Halliburton, it's possible that the person that gave the order to destroy evidence has already gotten away with much more heinous crimes and effectively has immunity from prosecution for anything he does. And if they try to hunt him down, he might shoot them in the face.
No, I'm sure he would only shoot his friends in the face but he probably would have an airtight walk-in safe for everyone else.
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But all record of the order is probably 'lost' too.
Any competent criminal giving such a cover-up instruction would visit their underling in person and give the order verbally, rather than risk any form of electronic communication or written record.
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We need a system of punishments that really works for corporations. The corporation can't break the law without specific people also breaking the law on behalf of the corporation. Those who gave the orders need to go to jail and those who followed the orders also need to go to jail, and the fines have to be meaningful deterrrents and object lessons to other corporations. It has to be made MUCH more expensive to be caught breaking the law than to obey it. Take a year's revenue from a company like Hallibu
Re:what don't we know? (Score:5, Insightful)
In my wildest conspiracy theories, the English Monarchy and other old money global illuminati types (Bush's?) purposefully had the well blown to punish America for stopping Keystone XL.
In my wildest conspiracy theories, the very rich and mighty are still people and fuck up often. The only difference is that they consider some millions of dollars to just be the expected cost of doing business.
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In my wildest conspiracy theories, the English Monarchy and other old money global illuminati types (Bush's?) purposefully had the well blown to punish America for stopping Keystone XL.
In my wildest conspiracy theories, the very rich and mighty are still people and fuck up often. The only difference is that they consider some millions of dollars and a few dead peons to just be the expected cost of doing business.
FTFY...
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"Taking a deal" is not dispositive (Score:2)
These companies don't 'take deals' unless it is the absolute last option.
Not true. A quick settlement is often far cheaper than drawn-out litigation for which a company must pay a legal team thousands of dollars per hour. This happens in lawsuits all the time, with corporations, government entities, and individuals. Patent trolls and bringers of nuisance lawsuits depend on this behavior.
I don't have an opinion about this case, but just wanted to say that it's a bad idea to assume "it was cheaper to settle quickly" is evidence of guilt.
civil cases (Score:1)
You're missing potentialities and it causes you to focus too narrowly on a few outcomes.
It *could* be cheaper to settle quickly...for alot of reasons...but not in this case...
Ex: It could be cheaper to settle quickly because it gets it out of the news (hopefully on a good note) quickly which has a discernable effect on the ammount of awards from juries in civil cases.
I don't agree, but that's a falsification of my position tha
Re:All simulations lie (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, I don't know about engineering simulations, but I've worked with systems that did public health simulations. What laymen *think* a computer model can do is predict the future. And maybe in some cases a model can come close to doing that. But the real value of models is to generate questions and hypotheses for investigation.
The problem with models is that they're only as good as the input data you feed them, and in many cases the data is unknowable or based on assumptions you aren't sure of. And that leads to a practical application of a model. You don't say, "I know that X is true, therefore Y will or will not happen" because you almost certainly don't know everything you'd need to know to make such a positive prediction. Rather, you say, "If you are worried about Y, you'd better check on X."
Tthat Halliburton destroyed the documentation when it knew that documentation was needed for the DWH investigation makes me wonder whether simulation results suggested Transocean (the operators of DWH) ought to be paying attention to certain preventable factors that contributed to the disaster. Even if that didn't let Transocean off the hook, it might change the distribution of damages and fines paid by the responsible parties.
Check your headline, it should be "Halliburton" (Score:1)
I know it is early, but posting before coffee is irresponsible (I just had to use the spell-checker myself).
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I know it is early, but posting before coffee is irresponsible (I just had to use the spell-checker myself).
It would be an ever better headline if it said "Halle Berry".
$200.000 in fines (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/07/25/halliburton-guilty-plea-destroying-evidence-deepwater-horizon/2588105/ [usatoday.com]
Not too bad... I think they may be able to afford it.
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yeah good thing they didn't perform wire fraud(or weren't prosecuted for that)..
just regular good 'ol boys fraud affecting billions of dollars..
Re:$200.000 in fines (Score:5, Insightful)
"Under the plea agreement, which requires court approval, Houston-based Halliburton will also face three years' probation, pay the maximum fine of $200,000..."
yeah good thing they didn't perform wire fraud(or weren't prosecuted for that)..
just regular good 'ol boys fraud affecting billions of dollars..
Foul up an entire ecosystem, wreck the lives of thousands, destroy the evidence, pay $200.000.
Download 30 songs off a torrent pay $675.000.
I can't imagine I'm the only one who thinks that is a broke way of valuing things. How about handing in one of those White House petitions about this issue and asking them what they are going to do about it. The answer should be interesting. Even if it turns out to be a gust of hot air at least we'd get to see them squirm for a while.
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Keep in mind this fine isn't for all of that. It's just for deleting a bunch of data. There are more fines to come.
Re:$200.000 in fines (Score:5, Insightful)
Keep in mind this fine isn't for all of that. It's just for deleting a bunch of data. There are more fines to come.
That in itself is a criminal act that if you did it in a non-corporate trial would result in prison time, not a fine.
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Keep in mind this fine isn't for all of that. It's just for deleting a bunch of data. There are more fines to come.
That in itself is a criminal act that if you did it in a non-corporate trial would result in prison time, not a fine.
The problem is that they only fine corporations because there isn't any "one" to imprison. What would be a logical equivalence would be to to require corporations to give the govt a percentage ownership of stock in the company as a fine and the govt will dump the stock on the open market after the equivalent jail time has expired.
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The problem is that they only fine corporations because there isn't any "one" to imprison
Yes there is. Probably more than one. Someone gave the order to perform an illegal activity. Someone followed the order to perform an illegal activity.
Listen, Halliburton being a corporation doesn't give them some sort of mystical disembodied super-power. It's a group of people. The same as a mafia gang, plumber's union, government, military troop, or book club. If someone in your book club decided to go murder their mother, you don't get thrown in jail. If the head of the plumbers union uses the union's f
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The problem is that they only fine corporations because there isn't any "one" to imprison
Yes there is. Probably more than one. Someone gave the order to perform an illegal activity. Someone followed the order to perform an illegal activity.
...If the the general orders his troops to go on a raping spree, and they all do it, then they all go to jail.
I beg to differ. What really happens is the incident is covered up and nobody goes to jail unless the press gets hold of the story and then there's a slight chance that a few of the lowest-level soldiers will go to jail.
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The problem is that they only fine corporations because there isn't any "one" to imprison
Yes there is. Probably more than one. Someone gave the order to perform an illegal activity. Someone followed the order to perform an illegal activity.
...If the the general orders his troops to go on a raping spree, and they all do it, then they all go to jail.
I beg to differ. What really happens is the incident is covered up and nobody goes to jail unless the press gets hold of the story and then there's a slight chance that a few of the lowest-level soldiers will go to jail.
Yeah... It always seems that they always find some scapegoat at the lowest-level who was "operating independently".
It would be nice if the "buck stops here" happens and after identifying the henchman who dunnit, they imprison all managers from him upwards including the CEO.
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A corporation cannot break the law without individual human beings in that corporation breaking that law. Those people should go to prison. If the person who broke the law cannot be identified, jail everybody from VP on up and the board of directors.
Your proposed solution delays the punishment and the longer the sentence the more it is delayed. That means there will be no real punishment for serious crimes. I say make them pay now and pay big, up to and if necessary including the entire value of the com
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So, how much will those in the IRS have to pay for destroying evidence?
Sauce for the goose.
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In all fairness, it's 200k in criminal penalties for destroying some evidence. They've added another $55 million towards the Fish and Wildlife Fund. $55,200,000 is still pretty small for Halliburton, but it's a lot more than just $200k. Also, there's been over $1.6 billion in criminal fines from BP and TransOcean so its not like the companies involved are getting away cheaply.
From what I've read, they recommended 21 centralizers, but BP chose to go with 6 instead since the simulation said there is little
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How about handing in one of those White House petitions about this issue and asking them what they are going to do about it. The answer should be interesting.
I think you haven't seen many of the answers to petitions that challenge the whims of the oligarchy. They sometimes run into tens, or even dozens of words, but boil down to, "No, because I said so."
can't the tests just be rerun? (Score:4, Insightful)
Did they throw out the simulation code as well?
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That's not the point. They apparently were under orders to preserve materials in case they were needed as evidence, but deleted them.
It would be like destroying the original of an unfavorable contract you were trying to quash and then saying you couldn't find it. You might be able to reconstruct it, or print out a facsimile of it, but the problem was the obstruction of the court process rather than the actual destruction.
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My bad. At the time of the destruction, they weren't yet under orders to preserve, but they were found to have destroyed it specifically so they couldn't have it used in court. That's still seen as obstructing justice.
However many of the headlines related to this are misleading in that they imply that Halliburton has plead guilty to being responsible for the disaster. You have to read farther into the article to see that they plead guilty to destroying computer simulations.
And let's remember, that it's BP t
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You don't destroy evidence like that if you have nothing to hide. No single party is likely to be entirely responsible for the disaster, and there has been some jingoistic sentiment in the USA that it was all the fault of the nasty foreign company. Something that is highly improbable.
It is not all Halliburton's fault, but it is also not all BP fault either.
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The big international oil majors are so widely distributed that it's really misleading to think of them in terms of "foreign" or "domestic".
Just as BP might get some unwarranted scorn for being British, Halliburton gets it for being associated with Cheney. Neither is really the point, but who did what and when is.
As you say, there's plenty of blame to go around.
well fuck me! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:well fuck me! (Score:5, Funny)
If I pour crude oil into the ocean, destroy the livelyhoods of fishing communities and kill a few of people on an oil platform in a gas fire (and destroy some evidence), I'll get a couple of hundred $k fine. If I buy a gun and go out and shoot the same number of people (and survive the manhunt) I'll get the rest of my life being a jailhouse bitch. Now, I wonder which I would choose?? Haliburton, do you have any vacancies???
Dear phydes,
We're sorry, your previous experience as a mass-murder is impressive, but you do not meet the minimum evil standards required to work at Halliburton.
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If I pour crude oil into the ocean, destroy the livelyhoods of fishing communities and kill a few of people on an oil platform in a gas fire (and destroy some evidence), I'll get a couple of hundred $k fine. If I buy a gun and go out and shoot the same number of people (and survive the manhunt) I'll get the rest of my life being a jailhouse bitch. Now, I wonder which I would choose?? Haliburton, do you have any vacancies???
Oh no, it's much better than that. If you pour crude oil into the ocean etc etc, you will wind up going to jail, because you are just one man. But if you operate a corporation such that such an outcome is inevitable, then you will get a fat bonus and the corporation will get a small fine.
Fix the typo in the title already (Score:4, Insightful)
Editor. I do not think that word means what you think it means...
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"You know you're powerful when you shoot someone in the face, and he apologizes to you." -- Jon Stewart
Editors, check the spelling... (Score:1)
Title says "Hallibuton" (no 'r'), article says "Halliburton" (correct spelling).
so... (Score:4, Insightful)
Halliburton perpetrates huge fraud on the government (in billions) and nothing is ever done.
They defraud another corporation, they're in trouble.
You see the pattern here? madoff is only in jail because he defrauded other rich people.
I hate that pathetic corporate fig leaf (Score:2)
BULLSHIT
Another sweetheart deal (Score:1)
Another sweetheart deal for a company which caused tens of billions in damages. This kind of stuff isn't going to stop until we either start arresting CEO's and employees and charging them with crimes, or enacting the corporate equivalent of a death sentence, confiscating their funds & property and putting it on the auction block when they are caught committing crimes or are responsible of gross negligence resulting in injury, death or economic loss.
submitted by Anonymous Reader: (Score:4, Informative)
My suspicious streak wonders if Anonymous Reader works in the BP PR department.
Ok, we're bringing up Halliburton, which is seen by some as the gold standard in corporate evil, but let's remember that it's BP (AKA Broke Pipeline Inc) that's the plaintiff in this case and are trying to shift the responsibility to Halliburton.
Given the stopping of preventive maintenance and replacing of experienced workers with cheaper ones that BP was widely known for, this is a bit of Pot Kettle Black.
Halliburton hasn't been tagged yet with overall responsibility for the spill as some headlines have claimed, but for destroying computer simulations done before the lawsuits started. That's bad, but it's not some get out of jail free card for BP. There's plenty of responsibility left to go around, and BP was the final word on that rig, not the contractors.
(Full disclosure: My brother worked for Arco before BP bought it. His division was spun off, but he heard quite a good deal about the bone stripping cost cutting that BP did after they bought it. That impacted repeated pipeline spills in Alaska and likely the Deepwater Horizon).
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Hahahah sorry to hear about your brother but that has given you a jaded view of how the industry works. Let me educate you. These companies don't DO anything. They buy, they own, and they subcontract. Halliburton is to blame for the cementing because BP doesn't do cementing and doesn't have the embedded knowledge of how to cement a well. What they have is lawyers which write up contracts and get other companies to do this for them.
This has been the trend for every major oil and gas company in the last 20 ye
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Yes, I know the outsourcing trend. I also know people who work at the contractors. They'll do the job you pay them to do. When BP took over Arco's Alaska pipeline network, one of the things they didn't pay for was the same level of maintenance on the pipelines. And, surprise, they got corrosion and leaks.
If you keep telling them to go cheap they'll do a cheaper job. But, like BP has experienced, you get problems.
When you replace senior workers with younger workers you save money regardless of the base of th
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You're seriously saying that BP isn't trying to transfer some of its liability to Halliburton (rightly or wrongly)?
No. Transfer of liability is precisely what I'm saying. Get the experts in, let the lawyers write the contracts and then get them to do the job. If they under paid the experts that's not BP's fault. If I pay for a cementing job and someone quotes on it I expect them to do it properly, I don't expect to get hauled to the courts when this other job fails.
Considering the myriad of companies involved in this fuckup I'm just amazed that BP copped the blunt of it.