BP approaches US Supreme Court over Gulf Oil payments

BP has appealed to the US Supreme Court in a final attempt to prevent the compensation settlement for its part in the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

The main issue of contention is a ruling regarding how businesses must be compensated in the wake of the disaster, which BP says is disproportionate.

The oil giant had originally estimated that the cost of the settlement would be $7.8 billion, but the significant number of claims for business losses meant the final cost was closer to $15 billion.

Payment of those claims was stopped by an injunction last October, pending the result of BP’s legal actions.

This week, a court re-affirmed that BP must pay some businesses economic damages, whether or not they can prove the spill caused losses, leaving the company with only one more course of action - the Supreme Court.

It is the latest development in a four-year tussle that began with an explosion at the Deepwater Horizon rig off the coast of Louisiana, which killed 11 workers and caused one of the worst oil spills in history.

Following the disaster, BP reached the terms of a settlement to compensate businesses, but has argued that these terms are being misinterpreted and that it faces paying compensation for false claims.

In response, lawyers representing those seeking money under the settlement have argued that BP fully understood the agreement before it was signed and approved by the court in 2012.

They claim that BP is trying to "back out" of the deal after discovering that costs are higher than it had realised, though in its defence BP said "no company would agree to pay for losses that it did not cause".

The US Supreme Court appeal now represents BP's last-ditch attempt to prevent the settlement payments from being made.