More than 100 people have been jailed for making fraudulent oil spill claims against BP, highlighting the scale of fraud the energy group faced as it tried to contain damage over the US’s largest environmental disaster in 2010.
The data, released by the US Department of Justice after a freedom of information request, showed that 311 people had been convicted by last September, with 102 sent to prison. Seven of those have been given five years or more in jail, including one sentenced to 15 years. BP has paid out billions of dollars in compensation claims over the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. When the disputes were at their height in 2013-14, the company waged a public campaign against what it described as “outrageous” claims, taking out full-page advertisements in US newspapers arguing that “what’s happening to BP is bad for American business”. Lawyers representing claimants, however, have argued that the level of fraud was low relative to the number of claims paid out. BP’s first compensation mechanism, the Gulf Coast Claims Facility, paid more than 220,000 claimants, and by the end of last year a further 153,000 claims had been paid out under a settlement agreed with plaintiffs’ lawyers in 2012.
