Bazı ülkelerde, çevrenin kirletilmesi cezasız kalmıyor.
Amerika'da nispeten az bilinen bir petrol şirketi olan Anadorka, 5.15 milyar dolar ceza ödemeyi kabul etti. Bu ceza, 2010'da Deep Horizon'da denize petrol dökülmesi ile ilgili olarak BP'ye verilen 4 milyar dolarlık cezadan daha fazla.
Olayın detayında müthiş bir kanundan kaçış var. Anakorda, 2006'da Kerr-McGee diye bir şirketi satınalıyor. Ancak şirketi satınalırken, bu şirketin bilinen çevre yükümlülüklerini almak istemiyor. Satınalmadan önce Tronox diye içi boş bir şirket kuruyorlar, çevre yükümlülüklerini de yeni kurulan şirketin içine koyuyorlar. Hani bizde şoför, kapıcı gibi ilgisiz insanların sahibi yapıldığı cinsten bir şirket. Beklendiği gibi bu şirket, bir süre sonra, 2011'de iflas ediyor ve yükümlülükler hava da kalıyor. Yani Anadorka, temizlenmesi veya bertaraf edilmesi gereken uranyum, toryum gibi yüzlerce depodaki zehirli atıklarla ilgili sorumluluklarından kaçmış oluyor.
Şirket alımlarındaki en önemli konulardan birisi, çevre ile ilgili yükümlülüklerin iyi tesbitidir. Çünkü şirketi satınaldığında onları da satınalmış olursun. Anlaşılan Anadorka, uyanıklık yapıp sorumluluktan kurtulmak istemiş. Bir Amerikan Adalet Bakanlığı temsilcisi, Kerr-McGee'nin Amerika'da kalıcı ve çok fazla çevre zararına neden olduğunu belirtmiş ve Amerikan Adalet Bakanlığın kaçışa izin vermemiş.
Bir not daha: şirket 14.2 milyar dolar ceza beklediğinden, 5.15 milyar dolar cezanın açıklanması üzerine şirket hisseleri tavan yapmış!
Ah bu para hırsı!
April 3, 2014 9:35 pm
Anadarko to pay $5.15bn in pollution case
By Ed Crooks in New York
Anadarko Petroleum, the US independent oil company, has agreed to pay $5.15bn in a settlement to resolve its long-running legal battle over pollution at thousands of sites across the US.
It is the largest environmental enforcement recovery by the Department of Justice, exceeding even the $4bn paid by BP in 2012 to resolve criminal proceedings over the2010 Deepwater Horizon spill.
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However, the payment is well below the potential maximum of $14.2bn proposed in a court ruling last December, and the $25bn originally claimed by the US government and plaintiffs suing for damages.
Anadarko shares surged 14.5 per cent to $99.02 after the settlement was announced.
The case stems from Anadarko’s 2006 acquisition of Kerr-McGee, another energy company that was alleged to have left toxic waste including thorium, creosote and uranium at about 4,000 locations over a period of decades.
Shortly before the deal, the polluting operations had been spun off into a company called Tronox, entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2009 and sued Anadarko for alleged “fraudulent” transfer of its environmental responsibilities.
Plaintiffs seeking damages from Tronox, which include state governments and the Navajo Nation as well as individuals, agreed a settlement with the company under which they would take on its case against Anadarko. They were backed by the US government.
The plaintiffs alleged that Kerr-McGee had “fraudulently transferred valuable assets out of Tronox and left Tronox with insufficient funds to pay the billions of dollars of liabilities that Tronox owed”, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, the US regulator.
The US bankruptcy court in New York ruled in December that Kerr-McGee had “acted to free substantially all its assets – certainly its most valuable assets – from 85 years of environmental and tort liabilities.”
The potential damages proposed by the court were much larger than analysts had generally expected, and triggered a steep fall in Anadarko’s share price.
After rising sharply on Thursday, the shares have regained the peak above $98 that they reached a couple of months before the bankruptcy court ruling.
James Cole, the US deputy attorney-general, said Kerr-McGee had left “significant, lasting environmental damage” across the US.
He added: “It tried to shed its responsibility for this environmental damage and stick the United States taxpayers with the huge clean-up bill.”
About 88 per cent of the settlement will go to the US and state governments, the Navajo Nation and environmental trusts to fund clean-ups at the polluted sites. The remainder will go to a trust for people harmed by the pollution.
Tronox, which emerged from Chapter 11 in 2011 and is now a paint pigments company, suggested in December that the damages proposed by the bankruptcy court would give it “no immediate or direct benefit”.
Al Walker, Anadarko’s chief executive, said: “This settlement agreement with the Litigation Trust and the US government eliminates the uncertainty this dispute has created, and the proceeds will fund the remediation and clean-up of the legacy environmental liabilities and tort claims”
He added: “Investor focus can now return to the tremendous value embedded in Anadarko’s asset base.”
The company also received positive news last month over the Deepwater Horizon disaster, where it is involved as a 25 per cent shareholder in BP’s Macondo well. At the US court in New Orleans hearing the case for damages and official penalties over the spill, the judge said Anadarko had “no legal duty to intervene in the well and [therefore] could not be negligent.”
That view will limit the value of the penalties for the spill that the judge will award.
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