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Will big business find a way to get out of paying oil spill damages?



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Thanks to Scott Horton, we learn that Transocean's managers, who moved their corporate HQ from Houston to the Caymans to Zug, have come up with a scheme to make oil spill damages almost impossible to recover. According to the AP:

After the chief executive of Transocean Ltd., owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig, held a closed-door meeting with shareholders Friday, the company issued a terse statement [ . . . ] saying it would distribute some $1 billion in dividend to shareholders. [emphasis mine]
This looks like fraudulent conveyance, but the money will be gone. Horton concludes:
It’s not surprising that the management of Transocean would take such a step. [ . . . ] But it is surprising that Congress and the executive would allow them to get away with it. An alert creditor would take action to block Transocean’s efforts to move its assets out of reach. The question is whether the United States is capable of acting like an alert creditor.
In the Randian world, of course, the shareholders are the deserving, not some stinky fishermen. Besides, those guys are poor. In the Randian world, this is justice. Hmm.

GP


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