Tony Hayward may be plowing a new and profitable furrow at Genel Energy, but testimony given in his old life as BP’s CEO may draw him back to the nadir of his career in June 2010.
Hayward has been accused by lawyers representing plaintiffs suing BP over the 2010 Gulf of Mexico disaster accuse Hayward, then CEO of BP, of giving “untruthful” testimony before the US Congress, according to a report in today’s Financial Times.
Plaintiffs are making two central claims against Hayward in filings lodged at the New Orleans district Court in respect of his testimony to Congress: that he claimed BP’s internal investigation had a wider remit than he claimed in court filings, and that he gave an inaccurate impression of BP’s investment in safety before the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig.
Plaintiffs are arguing that BP’s investigations, according to Hayward’s court filing, “did not look at the overarching management process at the time” of the disaster, which saw 11 men working on the rig killed and led to the largest offshore oil spill in history. This, say plaintiffs, contradicts Hayward’s claim before Congress that the BP investigation would “cover everything” and be “full and comprehensive.”
In respect of safety, plaintiffs claim Hayward misled Congress by stating that BP has invested billions of dollars and recruited thoudans of people to improve safety, when he had previously told BP’s investors that he had cut costs by $4 billion and 7,500 jobs.
According to the Financial Times, BP’s lawyers have said that Hayward faced personal attacks during questioning by plaintiffs and their lawyers that “went beyond the right of inquiry into a zone of improper questioning and badgering the witness.”
The scale and complexity of extant litigation against BP is staggering. Even after extensive efforts by BP to settle cases and make payments to claimants under the $20 billion Gulf Coast Claims facility established after the spill, there are currently 533 separate cases, with over 120,000 plaintiffs represented by 90 law firms which have to date racked up 230,000 of chargeable time before the first day of trial has begun. The Financial Times reported yesterday that documents filed at court, if printed on A4 paper, would total some 72 million pages, which if stacked on top of one another would make a pile four miles high.
The trial is set to begin on 27 February, after BP is due to announce its annual dividend on 7 February. The company has to balance adequate provision for the cost of the Gulf of Mexico spill with the need to pacify restless investors with an improved payout.
