Exxon to Pay Interest in Valdez Suit

Exxon has agreed to drop its appeals and pay the accrued interest on punitive damages related to the Exxon Valdez disaster.

Exxon said it will pay $470 million in interest on the $507.5 million in punitive damages it has already begun paying out to claimants. The company has already paid out $383 million and the only sum that remains in dispute in the long-running lawsuit is $70 million in court fees, according to a company spokesman....

Exxon's decision is the latest in a series of high-profile Alaska actions this year. The company has endured two decades of infamy in the state thanks to its tanker running aground and spilling 11 million gallons of oil in Prince William Sound, and its lengthy fight over how much to pay in spill damages....

The request for punitive damages was filed by Alaska Natives, fishermen and others who claimed harm to their livelihoods after the Exxon Valdez oil spill sullied 1,200 miles of Alaska coast. Since the mid-1990s, Exxon has appealed court-awarded punitive damages. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals this month finalized the punitive damages at $507.5 million, ordered Exxon to pay interest on that amount since 1996 and set the interest rate at 5.9 percent a year.

The $470 million will roughly double the average punitive damages award to 32,000 to 35,000 claimants, said David Oesting, an attorney for the plaintiffs....

Each claimant still owed money will receive an award ranging from several hundred dollars to more than $100,000 in some cases, he said.

It looks like this case may finally be grinding towards its conclusion. While the lawsuits might be coming to its close, unfortunately the ecosystem affected by the spill is still in the process of recovering.