British oil giant, BP, petitioned on Friday the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in its battle over claim payments resulting from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico.
BP asked the high court to enforce requirements for claimants to prove that they were directly harmed by the spill in order to be eligible to join a class action settlement. The company alleged that billions of dollars have been paid to some that may not be qualified. BP has asked Supreme Court to reverse split decisions by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
In June Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia rejected a request by BP to suspend payments for oil spill claims while the BP separately appealed the original claims settlement agreement. This was after the Fifth Circuit rejected by 8-5 an appeal by BP to block payments while the Supreme Court review continued
BP in 2012 reached one of the largest class-action settlements in U.S. history by agreeing to resolve claims of economic losses for those that had been impacted on the Gulf Coast. The original $7.8 billion settlement was uncapped and that is what has caused these legal gymnastics.
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