Transocean Deepwater will plead guilty to violating the Clean Water Act (CWA) and will pay a total of $1.4 billion in civil and criminal fines and penalties, for its conduct in relation to the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
Transocean Deepwater Inc. has signed a cooperation and guilty plea agreement with the government, also filed today, admitting its criminal conduct.
As part of the plea agreement, Transocean Deepwater will pay $400 million in criminal fines and penalties and to continue its on-going cooperation in the government’s criminal investigation.
As part of a proposed partial civil consent decree, Transocean Ocean Holdings LLC, Transocean Offshore Deepwater Drilling Inc., Transocean Deepwater Inc. and Triton Asset Leasing GMBH have agreed to pay an additional $1 billion to resolve federal Clean WaterAct civil penalty claims for the massive, three-month-long oil spill at the Macondo Well and the Transocean drilling rig Deepwater Horizon.
“The Justice Department should be commended for negotiating a $1 billion civil settlement with Transocean, which is a record amount and reflects the scope of the Gulf oil spill tragedy,” said David Uhlmann, a professor of law at the University of Michigan Law School and former head of the Justice Department’s Environmental Crimes Section.
“But the criminal penalty also should have been at least $1 billion given Transocean’s numerous failures to drill in a safe manner, which cost 11 workers their lives and billions of dollars in damages to communities along the Gulf,” Uhlmann said. “Transocean had disclosed in September that it was seeking a $1.5 billion settlement, so it is curious that the Justice Department has agreed to a settlement that is better than what Transocean was proposing – and that does not appear to include Seaman’s Manslaughter charges.”
On April 20, 2010, while stationed at the Macondo well site in the Gulf of Mexico, the Deepwater Horizon rig experienced an uncontrolled blowout and related explosions and fire, which resulted in the deaths of 11 rig workers and the largest oil spill in U.S. history.
In agreeing to plead guilty, Transocean Deepwater admitted that members of its crew onboard the Deepwater Horizon, acting at the direction of BP’s “Well Site Leaders” or “company men,” were negligent in failing fully to investigate clear indications that the Macondo well was not secure and that oil and gas were flowing into the well.