Other companies would not just have racked up a multibillion-dollar loss, they would have suffered the corporate equivalent of a public lynching and gone underOne chief executive overboard, a $17bn loss over the past three months and $32bn in clear-up costs. No doubt about it: BP has got off lightly for its part in the Gulf of Mexico disaster.Think about it: the multinational is ultimately responsible for spewing anywhere between 35,000 and 60,000 barrels off the Louisiana coastline – every day for months. The result has been a human tragedy, killing 11 workers and leaving others involved with the clear-up bill. It has been an environmental disaster, with thousands of dead
animals. It has also been an economic catastrophe, leading to a seven-week fishing ban in an area with a huge fishing industry and to a plunge in
tourism. And it has caused a convulsion in American politics, with Barack Obama coming under heavy artillery for not being hard enough on the oil giant behind the entire tragedy. It even blew up into a diplomatic issue, featuring in those initial discussions between the US president and David Cameron. With a rap sheet like this, other companies would not just have racked up a multibillion-dollar loss; they would have suffered the corporate equivalent of a public lynching and gone under.None of this is to play down what has actually happened to BP. The explosion of the Deepwater Horizon will cause the oil giant to pay out billions in the months and years to come (hence the setting aside of $32bn); it will have to sell off its own holdings and will shrink as a result. But having had a near-death experience, it now looks as if the worst is behind it.That must certainly be the thinking of executives, or else they would not have dared to acclaim boss Tony Hayward as the "model of corporate social responsibility", and packed him off with a year's extra salary and benefits (worth £1m) and a pension pot valued at about £11m. That must also be why they he ...
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