WASHINGTON – The Department of Justice announced this week
that Transocean Deepwater Inc. has agreed to plead guilty to violating the
Clean Water Act (CWA) and to 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 signed a cooperation and guilty plea agreement
with the government, on Jan. 3, admitting its criminal conduct. As part of the
plea agreement, Transocean agreed, according to a press release and subject to
the court’s approval, to pay $400 million in criminal fines and penalties “and
to continue its on-going cooperation in the government’s criminal
investigation.”
Further, according to terms 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 Water Act civil
penalty claims for the spill at the Macondo Well and the Transocean drilling
rig Deepwater Horizon in April 2010. The Transocean defendants also must
implement court-enforceable measures to improve the operational safety and
emergency response capabilities at all their drilling rigs working in waters of
the United States.
However, as
the Houston Chronicle notes, Transocean is agreeing to pay less than it
indicated it thought it would pay in an earlier regulatory filing and the
company appears to have avoided seaman’s manslaughter charges. Further, the
company has up to five years to pay off some of the penalties.
This announcement follows BP agreeing to pay $4.5
billion in fines over its role in the Deepwater Horizon spill. Halliburton,
the cement contractor involved in the spill, may yet also agree to fines and
penalties.
“This agreement holds Transocean criminally accountable for
its conduct and provides nearly a billion dollars in criminal and civil
penalties for the benefit of the Gulf states,” said Attorney General Eric
Holder in a statement.
The criminal resolution is structured to directly benefit
the Gulf region, the DoJ said. Under the order presented to the court, $150
million of the $400 million criminal recovery “is dedicated to acquiring,
restoring, preserving and conserving the marine and coastal environments,
ecosystems and bird and wildlife habitat in the Gulf of Mexico and bordering
states harmed by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.” This portion of the criminal
recovery will also be directed to significant barrier island restoration and/or
river diversion off the coast of Louisiana to further benefit and improve
coastal wetlands affected by the oil spill. An additional $150 million will be
used to fund improved oil spill prevention and response efforts in the Gulf
through research, development, education and training.
The civil settlement secures $1 billion in civil penalties
for violations of the CWA, a record amount that significantly exceeds last
year’s $70 million civil penalty paid by MOEX Offshore 2007 LLC, a 10 percent
partner with BP in the Macondo well venture. The unprecedented $1 billion civil
penalty is subject to the Resources and Ecosystems Sustainability, Tourist
Opportunities and Revived Economies of the Gulf Coast States Act of 2012
(Restore Act), which provides that 80 percent of the penalty will be to be used
to fund projects in and for the Gulf states for the environmental and economic
benefit of the region. This civil resolution reserves claims for natural
resource damages and clean-up costs. The proposed civil settlement is subject
to a public comment period and final court approval. Information on submitting comment will be available at
www.justice.gov/enrd/Consent_Decrees.html.