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Article

3 Oct 2011

Author:
Dahr Jamail, Al Jazeera

The escalation of BP's liability [USA]

The Gulf Coast-based law firm Brent Coon and Associates (BCA) is considered one of the world's foremost experts on BP, and has successfully sued the oil giant in the past...BCA now represents more than 5,000 claimants from BP's Gulf disaster and has been appointed by the Plaintiff's Steering Committee to head several key sub-committees relating to discovery...Coon...argued that, "[u]nless you criminally prosecute these people and make them pay for their decisions, they do not have a sufficient deterrent for the way they do business..."...Lawyer Stuart Smith agrees...that the federal government report on the 2010 disaster...presents "incriminating new evidence" that "increases the likelihood that criminal charges will be brought" against the oil giant, and predicts the new findings will push BP to offer large settlements to spill victims, particularly commercial fishermen and charter boat captains.

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