BP Sued By Mexican Fishing Businesses for Deepwater Horizon Spill - CorpWatch.org
British Petroleum (BP) has been sued by some 25,000 Mexican fishing businesses over the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Deepwater Horizon was a floating rig built by Hyundai Heavy Industries of South Korea and leased by Transocean of Louisiana to BP to explore for oil 4,000 feet below the surface in the Macondo Prospect some 41 miles off the coast. T o say that damages only occurred in the United States is a lie and shows a lack of respect for Mexico , Horacio Polanco, the lawyer for the plaintiffs in three Mexican coastal states of Tamaulipas, Veracruz and Quintana Roo, told El Pais newspaper. Polancos lawsuit was filed just days before U. S. courts threw out a lawsuit against BP filed by Mexican state governments, stating that the individual states did not have standing in court. "The Mexican constitution vests ownership of 'lands and waters within the boundaries of national land territory' in the 'nation,'" wrote Chief Judge Carl Stewart of the U. S. Court of Appeals in a judgment handed down May 1. "The state... The courts will now have to decide if individual Mexican businesses can sue BP. And the courts are also expected to hear a lawsuit filed in April 2013 by the Mexican federal. Source: www.corpwatch.org
