Judge hears claims BP lied about Gulf oil spill

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A trial over BP's 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has resumed with a federal judge hearing claims that the company misled federal officials and withheld information about the amount of crude spewing from its blown-out well.

During opening statements Monday for the trial's second phase, plaintiffs' attorney Brian Barr said BP failed to prepare for a blowout and compounded the problem by lying about how much oil was flowing from the well.

BP attorney Mike Brock said second-guessing the company's efforts to cap the well is "Monday morning quarterbacking at its worst."

The government and BP have different estimates; establishing how much oil leaked during the 86-day struggle to cap the well will help determine the penalties the oil company must pay.

Under the Clean Water Act, a polluter can be forced to pay a maximum of either $1,100 or $4,300 per barrel of spilled oil. The higher maximum applies if the company is found grossly negligent, as the government argues BP should be. But the penalties can be assessed at amounts lower than those caps. Congress passed a law dictating that 80 percent of the Clean Water Act penalties paid by BP must be divided among the Gulf states.

U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier is scheduled to hear four weeks of testimony for the second phase, which also is designed to help the judge determine how much oil spilled into the Gulf.

The second phase is divided into two segments. The first explores methods BP employed to cap the well. The second is designed to help Barbier determine how much oil spilled into the Gulf.

The first phase ended in April after Barbier heard eight weeks of testimony about the causes of the blowout.

BP insists it was properly prepared to respond to the disaster, but plaintiffs' attorneys will argue the London-based global oil company could have capped the well much sooner if it hadn't ignored decades of warnings about the risks of a deep-water blowout.