The State of Louisiana, along with the Federal Government, and the States of Alabama, Florida, Mississippi and Texas, has reached an $18.7 billion settlement agreement with BP in the Deepwater Horizon (“DWH”) litigation. The State of Louisiana, represented by Kanner & Whiteley, LLC, will receive at least $6.7 billion from the Settlement.
The majority of the settlement goes to resolve the natural resource damage (“NRD”) claims brought by the federal government and the Gulf States, including Louisiana. The remainder of the settlement money will go to resolve Clean Water Act civil penalties, and economic damages claims.
Louisiana’s share of the NRD recovery is the largest recovery of any state in any NRD case to date. To put this landmark settlement into perspective, the NRD recovery in from the Exxon Valdez was only approximately $1 billion.
The specifics of the settlement are still being negotiated among the parties and will be submitted to the Court in the form of a consent decree, which will be subject to public notice and comment before the Court’s review sometime in 2016. This settlement brings Louisiana’s total recovery from the Deepwater Horizon event to approximately $8.8 billion.
Kanner & Whiteley has represented Louisiana in all aspects of the assessment and prosecution of the State’s environmental and economic claims since the 2010 disaster, working with the State’s trustees and NRD experts to analyze and develop these NRD and economic loss claims.