By Margaret Cronin Fisk and Laurel Brubaker Calkins

(Bloomberg) — BP Plc received whole dismissal of claims by vitality and oilfield service corporations for losses they blamed on the U.S. offshore drilling ban following the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

BP has denied legal responsibility for doubtlessly billions of {dollars} in claims by corporations that needed to shut down drilling operations and stall work crews and provide chains for months after the Obama administration halted deep-water drilling and slowed permits for brand spanking new wells in response to the biggest offshore spill in U.S. historical past.

BP claimed the federal legislation governing legal responsibility for such financial losses required them to have “resulted from” the spill itself, not from the motion of a 3rd celebration just like the federal authorities. U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier agreed.

“There is nothing to suggest that Congress intended the OPA to go so far as to hold a discharger liable for the financial consequences of subsequent government actions aimed at preventing similar tragedies in the future and which broadly affect an entire industry,” Barbier stated in a 17-page ruling referencing the Oil Pollution Act handed within the wake of the Exxon Valdez spill of 1989.

Barbier stated his logic was supported by the very fact the U.S. Coast Guard, which is tasked with administering the federal fund to compensate victims of oil spills, has been denying all BP spill claims which are “a direct result of the moratorium, not a result of an oil discharge.”

Geoff Morrell, BP’s spokesman, had no instant touch upon the ruling.

The case is In Re: Oil Spill by the Oil Rig “Deepwater Horizon” within the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, 2010, 10-md-02179, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Louisiana (New Orleans).

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