http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Sourc...tml?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=main&asset=&ccode= BP will not be able to amputate its US operations to limit its liability. We, the US, are still quite the international bully. Don't forget that we recently twisted Switzerland's arm about UBS and had them violate their own sovereign bank secrecy laws. There's no way that the English gov't would be able to shield BP from the long and greedy fingers of the USA.
Is there any estimate on how much the oil in that well was expected to be worth? Is BP breaking even or is this costing them more than the oil well was worth?
BP has to be the easiest stock to trade in years. Almost embarrassed to take the $$$$ bought a max position on div cut announce. easiest trade in years.
UBS was clearly violating western law. A govt has the right to challenge another country's govt that supports an environment that violates another country's laws. Such as Chinese (toleration of) piracy of western movies, software, copyrights, patents, and a lot of other things.
Just what is greedy about insisting that if a giant corporation causes billions of dollars of damage that it must pay billions of dollars of compensation? I favor capitalism, but that means that if you create billions of dollars of value you get to keep billions, and if you cause billions of dollars of damage you must give up billions. Unfortunately AIG, encouraged by our bail out government, conveniently forgot about the second half of the deal, and that helped to give capitalism a bad name.
When Pemex had their Gulf blowout in '79 they paid $100 mill for cleanup, then claimed "sovereign immunity" and avoided paying compensation. There's no way that could happen in today.