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By Lawrence Hurley
WASHINGTON, May 28 (Reuters) - BP Plc on Wednesdayasked U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia to allow thecompany to avoid making payments to businesses demandingcompensation for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill whilelitigation continues.
The company acted after the New Orleans-based 5th U.S.Circuit Court of Appeals lifted an injunction earlier in the daythat had prevented payments being made. Last week, the court haddecided not to revisit a decision rejecting BP's bid to blockpayments to businesses that could not trace their economiclosses to the disaster.
Scalia, who has responsibility for emergency applicationsarising from the 5th Circuit, can either act on BP's requesthimself or refer the matter to the nine-member court as a whole.There is no specific deadline by which the court must act.
In the new court filing, BP's lawyers say that if thepayments are not blocked, "countless awards totaling potentiallyhundreds of millions of dollars will be irreparably scattered toclaimants that suffered no injury traceable to BP's conduct."
The appeals court in March voted 2-1 to authorize paymentson so-called business economic loss claims, and said theinjunction preventing payments should be lifted. BP already hadsaid it would seek Supreme Court review of the ruling.
BP is trying to limit payments over the April 20, 2010,explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and rupture ofBP's Macondo oil well. The disaster killed 11 people andtriggered the largest U.S. offshore oil spill.
A lower court judge had ruled that BP would have to livewith its earlier interpretation of a multibillion-dollarsettlement agreement over the spill, in which certain businessesclaiming losses were presumed to have suffered harm. (Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Additional reporting by DanLevine; Editing by Howard Goller and Tom Brown)
