From the FINANCIAL TIMES:
…Eric Holder, the attorney-general, announced last June that his department had launched a criminal investigation into BP. The DoJ said on Friday that its investigation was ongoing.
US legal experts generally believe the commission’s findings do not provide a conclusive case for finding BP grossly negligent; however, they do not rule it out. But as established in a case known as Hanousek, decided in the Supreme Court in 2000, a criminal prosecution requires only that the violation was caused by negligence.,,
John Coffee, a professor at Columbia Law School, said one possibility would be for the DoJ to offer a “deferred prosecution agreement”, with BP accepting responsibility and a large fine without being convicted…
Click here to read the full article.
