Too Slick To Jail 
 

 This OP-ED appeared originally in: CommPro.Biz

So let’s get this straight: energy giant BP pleads guilty to a flock of charges and faces the largest criminal fines ever levied, fines overshadowed by massive civil penalties and more fines. And the only people facing charges are four way-down-the-pecking-order guys? And that’s it? The $4.5 billion in fines is pocket change when viewed against BP’s 2011 profits of $25.7 billion (that’s about $3 million an hour). How about the executives at the top who pushed those below for more and more? Folks like whiner-in-chief Tony “I'd like my life back” Hayward, BP CEO for the three years leading up to the disaster. Why isn’t Hayward being charged with manslaughter?

Instead, the two top guys on the BP rig face manslaughter charges for the eleven people killed in the blast. Another executive is charged with obstruction. He is alleged to have lied about the amount of oil spewing into the Gulf. One relatively low-level engineer was arrested earlier, charged with deleting hundreds of texts from his smartphone that indicated a much higher flow of crude oil into the Gulf than the numbers the bigwigs were feeding the media.

Tony Hayward and other carpetlanders created a “Profits First” culture that led to corner cutting and the disaster. Tony got a golden parachute. He got his life back. There’s no way the families of the eleven workers can get their “lives back.” One family member observed that he never got so much as an apology. That during a Congressional hearing BP executives seated close by never even looked him in the eye, let alone expressed sorrow for his loss. That would suggest that the only loss they are sorry for is the cash.

The Supreme Court declared that corporations are people with the benefits we all enjoy. The BP situation exposes a massive problem with that decision. How do we punish corporate “citizens” whose reckless actions result in the death of flesh and blood citizens? Imposing fines hardly seems sufficient. But how do you jail these corporate citizens? Going after a few minor players is a joke. Even sentencing the CEO to jail –culpable as they might be– doesn’t fill the bill; they rarely deserve all the blame. There’s the Board of Directors; aren’t they responsible for policy? Lots of luck trotting them all off to the slammer. We don’t see an answer.

After all, we haven’t been able to bring the individuals responsible for the collapse of the world economy to justice. The banksters we bailed out are living high. They have proven too big to jail. It shouldn’t surprise us then that the true architects of the disaster in the Gulf are too slick to jail.

What BP Was Hiding

Two years ago come April reckless shortcutting by BP and its partners in the Gulf of Mexico triggered a blowout of one of its deepwater wells killing eleven of those working on the platform and injuring 17 others. For roughly three months the well spewed crude oil into the Gulf. It was five months before it was capped once and for all.

Monday (02.27.12) the people of the United States will finally begin to get their day in court. The U.S. District Court in New Orleans begins what will be years of responsibility dodging and finger pointing by BP, Halliburton, Transocean, and some of the other players in this tragedy. Among the +/- 600 claimants there will be one more class of the ethically challenged, those who make false claims in an attempt to cash in on this awful event.

An event that we do not as yet know its full impact. Some environmental damage could play out for years. Some facts up to now hidden will come out in court. One shocker was disclosed as a part of the run-up to the trial. In the early hours of the first day BP managers estimated that the spill could dump 3.4 million gallons of crude oil into the Gulf every day. A number higher than the final US estimate by about a million gallons a day.

But instead of following the tried and true “Prepare for the worst and hope for the best” path, BP instead buried this estimate. Internal memos and emails released last week show that BP engaged in a frantic effort to keep secret their estimates of the potential damage of the spill and to browbeat the US Coast Guard into down playing it as well; despicable.

It will be years, two or three at least, perhaps another twenty before the claims are all settled. BP is trying to settle as many as possible before they get into court. They are looking to settle much as $20 billion in federal fines before the trial gets underway. There’s the much of the touted $20 billion that BP set aside early on to pay those (especially the little folks) who suffered financially from the spill and they could face more. All of these big numbers need to be viewed in light of the windfall BP and others enjoyed when the blowout triggered a spike in oil prices.

Keep in mind that this court date is just to determine financial responsibility. Yet to come –we can only hope– are the criminal charges that may be leveled at some of the entities and individuals involved. It is important to remember the horrific deaths and injuries sustained in the explosion, the fireball, and the crash into the Gulf that day in April are of much greater significance than any other part of this tragedy. The environment will heal. Financial loss will be recovered - or not. But those left in physical and mental pain, along with the families left without their sons and brothers, and fathers, and husbands, they will live with their loss for the remainder of their lives.

As Clear As Mud

Sifting through mounds of media coverage on the Gulf Oil spill for the cause has proven almost as fruitless as watching the Congressional hearing participants play the blame game on who bears responsibility for this disaster. While it’s important to find out just what went wrong with the Deepwater Horizon last month –as it is to minimize the damage– the underlying cause is becoming quite clear. The ethical culture projected at the top by British Petroleum (BP) was not conveyed or perhaps enabled at the operating level. This disconnect becomes obvious in reviewing their operations on another Gulf rig, the Atlantis.

The company hired an independent firm headed by Stanley Sporkin, a former federal judge, to review a whistle-blower's complaints about the BP-owned Atlantis, stationed more than 150 miles south of New Orleans in over 7,000 feet of water. The gist of the complaint is that the Atlantis operated with incomplete and inaccurate engineering documents, which one expert warned could "lead to catastrophic operator error." Sporkin says that the whistle-blower’s allegation "was substantiated, and that's it." We are not talking about a paper here and a paper there. An expert who reviewed thousands of the Atlantis’ documents says that as many as 85% of them were flawed.

Not so according to an Associated Press report. Karen K. Westall, Managing Attorney for BP, says "BP has reviewed the allegations and found them to be unsubstantiated." Adding to the confusion, early this year a BP lawyer advised members of Congress that the company was complying with federal requirements. Furthermore the Atlantis received an award for safe operation from the Minerals and Management Service (MMS), the federal agency that oversees these rigs. Makes you wonder what they call that award, maybe “The MMS So Far, So Good Award.”

It all comes down to this. Ethical behavior ain’t cheap, but it’s a whole lot less expensive than the alternative as BP is discovering. When you’re in a hurry, or someone is pushing to save a buck, it’s too easy to cut a corner, or in this case thousands of corners. BP can talk the talk, but they are far from walking the walk. At this point they need to step full bore into the ethical model. They keep saying they will bear responsibility for all financial loss. That would be a big step in the right direction. It rings a little hollow, however, against the finger pointing they did during the Congressional hearing.

It’s time for BP to decide their future. If they do the right thing, tell their lawyers to “stuff a sock in it” and spread an ethical culture into every corner of their operations, they may be able to recover their reputation. That is an incredibly expensive alternative. Should they choose to stonewall, duck and dodge, the odds are they will destroy what little is left of their reputation and perhaps the company. A much more expensive alternative.