San Francisco: A US federal appeals court on Monday ruled against three Mexican states which had sued BP over the Deepwater Horizon disaster of five years ago.
In making its decision the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeal, in New Orleans, Louisiana, upheld a 2013 district court ruling.
It supported the argument of that earlier case that the Mexican states – Veracruz, Tamaulipas and Quintana Roo – lacked standing to file the suit because Mexico’s federal government already had a case of its own still making its way through the US courts system.
The Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010. It left 11 men dead, 17 injured and more than 200m gallons of oil in the sea as the underwater flow took 87 days to staunch. It became the worst ever oil spill in US waters.
The three states’ case had sought damages for oil spill response costs and environmental damage, among other things.
