Louisiana Files Lawsuit Against Transocean For Gulf Oil Spill

Posted in BP British Petroleum,Deepwater Horizon,Environment,Gulf Coast,Louisiana Maritime News,Maritime Lawsuits,Transocean,World Maritime News on September 21, 2010

NEW ORLEANS, LA – The state of Louisiana has filed suit against Triton Asset Leasing GmbH and Transocean Ltd. for damages resulting from the Gulf oil spill.

In the lawsuit, “State of Louisiana v. Triton Asset Leasing, GMBH et al.”, the defendants listed are Transocean Deepwater, Inc., Transocean Holdings, L.L.C., Transocean Offshore Deepwater Drilling, Inc. and Triton Asset Leasing, GMBH. The cause of action in the lawsuit is the Oil Pollution Act. The suit was filed in the Fifth Circuit, Louisiana, Eastern District Court on September 14, 2010.

The lawsuit is only seeking for Transocean to be deemed laible and is not seeking to recover any costs or damages at this time. This is an important issue for Transocean because if the judge rules against the company, it could face heavy financial penalties in the future.

According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, after the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon in April, 2010, BP  PLC and Transocean were designated to be responsible parties under the Oil Pollution Act by the U.S. Coast Guard. Subsequently, in a letter written to the Coast Guard in May, 2010, Transocean denied responsibility for “any underwater discharges of oil from the well head.”

In the letter to the Coast Guard Transocean was basically asserting that it is only liable for oil that leaked from its rig and not for any of the oil that spewed from the well into the Gulf of Mexico for almost three months. The lawsuit is contesting Transocean’s assertion on the basis that the company “contravened state and federal environmental laws.”

According to Louisiana’s court filing, Transocean is trying to limit its liability, stating that it is only responsible for about 700,000 gallons of fuel that The Deepwater Horizon was carrying when it sank in an explosion on April 20, 2010. The lawsuit points out that there was an estimated total of about 210 million gallons of oil that spilled into the Gulf from the well as a result of the disaster and that Transocean is claiming responsibility for only only a small fraction of that total.

The Wall Street Journal article points out that the lawsuit says, “Transocean’s denial of liability … is also at odds with the State of Louisiana as it affects Louisiana’s ability to seek recovery of costs and damages related to this oil spill from the responsible parties.”

The filing also says that the state of Louisiana “has incurred and will continue to incur costs and certain damages including cleanup and removal costs, costs of increased public services, loss of state revenue, property damages and natural resource damages.”