BP is to seek review by the US Supreme Court on whether it must pay some businesses for economic damages without proof that the Gulf of Mexico oil spill caused such losses.
The British oil giant will appeal on a court’s ruling on Monday that businesses don’t have to prove they were directly harmed by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster.
BP said it will also ask the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans not to require that it pays firms “until the Supreme Court has considered the matter”.
The company faces billions of dollars of additional payments to businesses that claim loss or injury that cannot be directly linked to the oil spill.
BP said in a statement: “No company would agree to pay for losses that it did not cause and BP certainly did not when it entered into this settlement. BP will continue to fight to return the settlement to its original, explicit, and lawful purpose – the compensation of claimants who suffered actual losses due to the spill.”
