05 March 2014, News Wires – A US appeals court has rejected an appeal of a ruling that allowed businesses to claim money over the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, even if the economic loss could not be traced to the disaster.
With a 2-1 vote, the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans upheld the December ruling by Judge Carl Barbier.
It also said the injunction preventing payments for so-called business economic loss claims should be lifted.
Barbier said BP would have to live with the earlier interpretation of a multi-billion dollar settlement agreement over the spill in which certain businesses claiming losses were presumed to have suffered harm.
Earlier this year, a federal judge denied BP’s request to stop payments from the $2.3 billion fund it created for fishermen who suffered financial losses claimed after the Macondo oil spill.
BP wanted to stop payments after it claimed that some individuals supposedly injured, did not exist.
– Upstream