BP wants their own judge (ethics, Reagan, legal, attorneys)

[James420]

Or should I say, "Their owned judge".


[LEFT]MIAMI — Facing more than 100 lawsuits after its Gulf of Mexico oil spill killed 11 workers and threatened four coastal states, oil giant BP is asking the courts to place every pre-trial issue in the hands of a single federal judge in Houston.
That judge, U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes, has traveled the world giving lectures on ethics for the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, a professional association and research group that works with BP and other oil companies. The organization pays his travel expenses.
Hughes has also collected royalties from several energy companies, including ConocoPhillips and Devon Energy, from investments in mineral rights, his financial disclosure forms show.
Hughes, appointed to the bench in 1985 by then-President Ronald Reagan, declined to comment for this report.
Edward Sherman, a law professor at Tulane University in New Orleans who has closely followed the BP legal maneuvers, said BP probably studied Hughes' past rulings and his caseload before suggesting he take the cases.
In court papers, BP said Hughes should handle the cases because he is already hearing one class-action case, filed by a group of Vietnamese-American fishermen after the spill, and has presided over complex, multi-jurisdictional cases in the past.
The company wants all of the oil spill lawsuits — at least 98 as of May 21 — to be heard in Houston because that's the home of BP's American headquarters, where many witnesses and records are located, and where many of the suits have been filed. BP is facing suits in at least seven different courts in five states, including Florida.
Other lawyers were surprised that BP was seeking to select its own judge; in both state and federal courts, cases are typically assigned to judges randomly.
Most legal observers suspect the BP suits will be consolidated either in Houston — home to Transocean and Halliburton, the drilling contractors also facing scrutiny over the spill — or in New Orleans, the region now suffering the brunt of the oil spill's impact. Plaintiffs' attorneys have filed their own request to have the BP cases heard in New Orleans.
BP could potentially face hundreds of millions of dollars in claims stemming from what U.S. officials are now calling the worst oil spill in American history. In addition to suits from those injured in the April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon, the company faces a litany of claims from commercial fishermen and others who say the oil spill fouling the Gulf has harmed their businesses.
BP has already paid $29 million to settle more than 12,000 claims, the company said in court papers


Read more: BP wants Houston judge with oil ties to hear spill cases | McClatchy
[/LEFT]

from the Miami Herald.

[Pappy&Me]

I just want to know who caused it . Who will benefit from this desaster the most ?

[James420]

Originally Posted by Pappy&Me

I just want to know who caused it . Who will benefit from this desaster the most ?

At some point one or more politicians will claim they were renting out their beach houses in the Keys for a million dollars. One way or another the little guys with fishing business's will get screwed just like they did when the Exxon Valdez leaked oil.