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By Dan Levine
SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 13 (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court onThursday revived a shareholder lawsuit against BP PLC over statements the company made in the wake of a2006 oil spill in Alaska.
The ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in SanFrancisco allows shareholders to proceed with some securitiesfraud claims against BP after a lower judge had dismissed them.
Representatives for BP and the plaintiffs could notimmediately be reached for comment.
In March 2006, about 200,000 gallons of oil spilled from aBP pipeline onto the Alaskan tundra at Prudhoe Bay, according tothe opinion.
"Despite BP's public statements suggesting that the spillwas an anomaly, a second leak was discovered five months laterin a different BP oil transit line in the region," the courtwrote. "As a result, the company temporarily shut down regionaloperations."
BP-Alaska eventually pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor fornegligent discharge of oil, and paid a $20 million fine tosettle state and federal criminal claims, the court wrote, alongwith additional civil penalties.
A group of shareholders filed a proposed class action against the company in 2008, claiming that BP and its executivesmade knowingly false statements about the events. A Seattlefederal judge dismissed all claims, but the 9th Circuit onThursday ruled that the plaintiffs had provided enough evidenceto show that some of the statements at issue should belitigated.
"In this case, facts alleged in the complaint support theconclusion that BP had been aware of corrosive conditions forover a decade, and yet chose not to address them," the courtwrote.
The case in the 9th Circuit is Claude Reese et al. vs.Robert Malone et al., 12-35260.
