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James Brockett

James Brockett

19 May 2010 | 16:02

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To say that it has been a dreadful month for BP is an understatement. From the moment the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on 20 April, the scale of the disaster has been mounting by the day. Eleven workers lost their lives in the explosion; 5,000 barrels of oil a day have been leaking into the Gulf of Mexico; and the growing oil slick has caused such damage to the environment and the local economy that it’s estimated the company will be hit with an eventual bill of around £6 billion.

While BP has been trying everything to plug the leak, from constructing a giant metal cap to jamming the gap with golf balls, chief executive Tony Hayward has apparently become America’s public enemy number one. But after being on the wrong end of a tongue-lashing from President Obama and receiving hate mail from the US public, Hayward has been pulling out all the stops to put things right. He has relocated to the company’s US headquarters in Houston and vowed not to return to the UK until the situation is resolved. He has mobilised a massive clean-up operation involving thousands of people, which BP will pay for in its entirety, and has admitted in interviews that he can barely sleep thinking about the oil still escaping from the ocean floor.

The incident raises troubling questions about the extent to which businesses, and their leaders, can be held responsible for the damage caused by their activity. It’s important to note that no official blame has been apportioned for the tragedy - the rig’s operator, Transocean, and building contractor Halliburton, have also been under scrutiny and all three parties have blamed each other when they gave evidence to US Congress. Of course, there is a feeling that BP has the moral responsibility to carry the can, not least because it has deeper pockets than the other firms – its profits in 2009 were £8.75 billion.

If BP are found to be at fault, there are those who would call for Hayward to lose his job – and given that lives were lost, there’s even the possibility that criminal charges could be brought. But how much can any one individual – even a chief executive – really be held accountable for a disaster of this magnitude? The mistake might have been down to a single defective piece of equipment, a single blunder or oversight by an otherwise attentive person or team. It might even have been the result of a tragic combination of circumstances, and nobody’s fault at all.

It’s worth remembering the case of Joseph Hazelwood, the captain of the Exxon Valdez oil tanker which ran aground in Alaska’s Prince William Sound in 1989, dumping 11 million gallons of crude oil and killing 250,000 seabirds. Exxon were initially fined $5 billion for the environmental catastrophe, (reduced to $500 million after 20 years of legal arguments) but if anyone was personally responsible for that disaster, it was Hazelwood. He was fined $50,000 and given 1,000 hours of community service, yet continued to protest his innocence and embarked on a lengthy appeals process. It was ten years before he paid his fine and did his community service, working in the Alaska’s national parks picking up litter, but it was not until the 20th anniversary of the disaster that he truly accepted his fault and made a formal apology to the Alaskan people. "I was the captain of a ship that ran aground and caused a horrendous amount of damage. I've got to be responsible for that," he wrote in a personal account of the disaster. "I would like to offer an apology, a very heartfelt apology, to the people of Alaska.”

However much it costs to clean up the latest oil spill, let us hope that it does not take 20 years for the individuals involved to show similar contrition.
 
 

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About the editors

Claire Churchard

Claire Churchard

News and features writer on People Management

Claire Warren

Claire Warren

The deputy editor at People Management, looking after the features section

James Brockett

James Brockett

News editor at People Management

Jill Evans

Jill Evans

Legal editor on People Management

Rob MacLachlan

Rob MacLachlan

Editor of People Management

Tim Smedley

Tim Smedley

Features writer on People Management.

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