BP forced to face US anger

Posted on June 23^rd 2010

Last week US President Barack Obama took the strong action he was being pressured to take and hauled senior BP executives in for a dressing down. After the meeting BP chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg faced the press on the White House lawn and chief exec Tony Hayward later appeared before Congress for a seven hour grilling.

As well as agreeing not to pay out any dividends to shareholders in 2010 Mr Svanberg apologised to the American people and said that a $20bn fund had been ring-fenced to pay liability insurance claims from affected people and businesses.

These days having liability insurance is not enough when companies cause huge environmental disasters. The public apology came a good few weeks too late to have any real affect on BP's image. But shares went up by nine points the day after nonetheless.

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