Thursday, August 12, 2010

OSHA's BP Texas City Fine Discounted


OSHA fined BP $87.4 million for poor safety practices at their Texas City refinery. BP agreed to pay $50.6 million. That's a 42% discount.

BP bought off the Justice Department for $50 million in regard to the 2005 Texas City accident, which killed 15 people. In the same settlement BP paid over $300 million for natural gas trading irregularities.

It's hard to figure what's a record "fine" vs. "settlement." Take the Goldman Sachs SEC fine, where the new record was larger than the old record. Other odd occurrences have corporations "paying to not play" in ongoing "pay to play" investigations.

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