0370 270 6000

already registered?

Please sign in with your existing account details.

Sign in with LinkedIn

need to register?

Register to access exclusive content, sign up to receive our updates and personalise your experience on brownejacobson.com.

Privacy statement - Terms and conditions

Register with LinkedIn

Forgotten your password?

Home arrow Insights arrow Resources arrow Blogs arrow The BP oil spill and retrospective legislation

The BP oil spill and retrospective legislation

28 May 2010

Efforts are continuing to contain the oil spill taking place in the Gulf of Mexico. Existing US law makes the parties responsible for an oil spill liable for clean-up costs, but limits to $75 million their exposure to other liabilities. But there is a move in Congress to raise that limit to $10 billion with the intention of applying this law retrospectively to BP.

Laws with retrospective effect are a classic example of a human rights abuse. Equally in a business situation, those seeking and providing insurance should be able to ascertain the costs risk arising. But in some cases the US Supreme Court has upheld such laws as constitutional. One rationale is that such laws are “regulatory” in nature rather than “punitive”. A similar trend for regulatory enforcement has developed in the UK recently with use of “non-criminal” sanctions, such as civil enforcement orders and penalties, which allow for the burden of proof to be lowered due to the “civil” nature of the enforcement.

So does  the US attempt to pass retrospective legislation amount to an abuse of Human Rights – or good economic sense?

Related opinions

Updated National Crime Agency (NCA) guidance: Shoot for better quality suspicious activity reports (SARs)

The National Crime Agency (NCA) published an updated guidance note for anti-money laundering supervisors targeted at improving the quality of suspicious activity reports (SARs) to make the best possible use of SARs and to minimise unnecessary delays, particularly where a defence against money laundering (DAML) has been sought.

View blog

Sports associations and clubs – keeping children safe from sexual abuse – Lessons learned from the Sheldon report

On 17 March 2020 a report by Clive Sheldon QC was published. He had been appointed by the FA back in December 2016 to carry out an independent review into allegations of sexual abuse by coaches and scouts working in youth football between 1970 and 2005.

View blog

Changes to the standard of proof for findings of unlawful killing in inquests

The Supreme Court has considered whether the applicable standard of proof in inquest proceedings should be to the criminal standard (beyond reasonable doubt) or the civil standard (on the balance of probabilities).

View blog

Impact of Covid-19 upon level of fine

Two cases have considered the issue of Covid 19 as part of the sentencing exercise. In the most recent, failures by a principal contractor Modus Workspace, who design and refit refurbishments, led to a £1.1 million fine after an engineer was injured from a fall from a roof.

View blog

View all blogs

Mailing list sign up

Select which mailings you would like to receive from us.

Sign up

Quick links

Information

  1. bab
  2. Investors in people
  3. Lexcel
  5. Plain English Campaign Approved

Follow us...

© Copyright Browne Jacobson LLP 2021 - All rights reserved