Could BPs Total Costs Hit $83 BILLION?
Image: BPBP announced today that it’s setting aside $20 billion in an escrow account, witch Kenneth Feinberg will disburse to those victims who were damaged in some economic manner. But this is just a fund for economic damage, and won’t protect it against all sorts of other legal costs. How high could those be? According to the NYT… Even misdemeanor convictions under environmental laws could produce stunningly large fines under general federal criminal statutes, Mr. Uhlmann added. That is because the Alternative Fines Act allows the federal government to request twice the gain or loss associated with an offense if the Justice Department shows that a crime was committed. Predictions by analysts of the overall cost of the spill to BP, when criminal penalties are included, have been rising. On Wednesday, Pavel Molchanov, an analyst at Raymond James, estimated the total legal cost, including criminal fines, at $62.9 billion, which would dwarf the $20 billion escrow account to be used to
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