BP’s liability is capped at $75MM unless they voluntarilly agree to pay more. I’m betting BP will reach some agreement with the gov’t where they pay for some and the taxpayers pay for some. Raising the liability cap retroactively would be ex post facto and unconstitutional.
BP’s liability is capped at $75MM unless they voluntarilly agree to pay more. I’m betting BP will reach some agreement with the gov’t where they pay for some and the taxpayers pay for some. Raising the liability cap retroactively would be ex post facto and unconstitutional.
That cap isn't as solid as you think. It doesn't apply to the individual states, only in regards to the Federal Government. And it doesn't apply to individual or class action lawsuits. In addition, the whole thing is "off" (i.e., the "cap") if negligence is shown (and the way I'm reading a lot of this, that's going to be shown). For example BP has hundreds of safety violations that they've had to "pay" for, compared to Exxon having only one violation, in the same period of time. It looks like BP is a "walking safety violation" to me ...
BUT, for sake of discussion ... let's use the $75 million cap and compare that to the amount of damages that it's approaching now. I've already read that we're talking about $10 BILLION to $20 BILLION ... so let's use the $10 BILLION figure.
If BP's damages are capped at $75 million, and the damages are $10 BILLION ... then if we were to convert that to how many "pennies on the dollar" that would amount to, it was be this way ...
BP -- pays 3/4 of one penny for every dollar of damage US Taxpayer -- pays 99.25 cents for every dollar of damage
Hoo-boy! what a sweet deal for BP! ... LOL ...