NOLA Notes

Corporations have neither bodies to be punished, nor souls to be condemned; they therefore do as they like.

~ Baron Thurlow of England (1731-1806).

Have we learned nothing in 250 years?  I put the likelihood of a BP executive going to jail over the Gulf Coast oil spill at 0%.  Why?  Well, for starters Obama has been saying he is in control of the spill from “Day One.”  So any badness attributed to BP after the spill will be defended as having government involvement.   And for the badness before the spill, for causing the spill, BP will defend by saying it followed the laws, had the proper rubber stamps of government approval, even if it is established that those rubber stamps were bought by BP in the way of improper gifts.  No one in the government oversaw the Minerals Management Service to any effectiveness and thus the government let things go unchecked.  And BP walks from criminal charges.

Do I agree? Hell, no.

But this is the system America has allowed to be created.  Sure, we are not the only country with corporations (that “B” in BP does stand for British, we all know).  Nor are we the only one that has government regulation of drilling oil.  But somehow, it seems uniquely American for capitalism to show the brashness of its strengths in such bold strokes–giving its finger to its regulators, the community it impacted, the entire general public.  But still kowtowing to its shareholders.

As a lawyer, an American and a firm believer in capitalism, this oil spill has shaken me to the core.  There will be no “piercing of the corporate veil” whereby individuals are found personally responsible for the failings of their companies.  There will be no admittance by BP that what it has done was anything other than negligent.  Not GROSSLY negligent, mind you. Just run of the mill, whoopsies, negligent. There will be no complete setting straight of things.

Sure, BP will pay oodles in damages.  But it is also paying no small sum to its shareholders as I write this in the way of a large dividend to reassure them the clean-up costs will not come close to bankrupting them.  And those damages? Manageable. Even calculated.  And I guess that is what gets my damn goat every time I think about this situation.  BP made no REAL plans for a spill of this magnitude.  It colluded with the MMS to avoid that plan needing to be submitted.  But what it DID have planned in its wings?  The damages it would have expected to pay in just this case.  So for them to suggest they never imagined this magnitude of a spill is an offensive lie. All in all, it knew that the odds were in its favor to be cheaper to just drill with no plan set and pay what it will be forking out for the next however-many years than to truly fund the research and technology to get that plan in place.

They lost the gamble.  And they will pay.  But that was part of their calculated risk.  Our Gulf Coast, its pelicans and planktons, our fishermen and their bounty, our culture and heritage, all of that was a line-item BP was willing to sacrifice to chase the almighty dollar.  They lost the gamble.  But who and what really lost on BP’s gamble?

But what did BP care anyway?  BP has neither a soul nor a body.  It did just as it liked.