LEGAL SITUATION OF A COMPANY

Legal Situation of a Company

Legal Situation of a Company

Introduction

British Petroleum is an international energy company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. BP 2009 generated worldwide consolidated sales of 239 billion U.S. dollars and employed 80 300 people. Worldwide, 83 million barrels of daily oil equivalent encouraged. Of these, BP promotes daily 4 million barrels (about 57 percent oil and 43 percent natural gas). The company has approximately 22,400 gas stations, serving 13 million customers daily (Connell, 2010).

In Europe, the Europe SE BP (before 1 January 2010 in Germany: German BP AG) to its domestic network of filling stations and in the lubricant market with a leader, taking the brands Aral (petrol stations, lubricants) and Castrol lubricants) occurs. The company's headquarters is Hamburg, executive chairman is Uwe Franke. 2008 recorded the German BP AG has annual sales of more than 42 billion Euros (nearly 30 billion Euros excluding energy tax). In Germany, nearly 6,000 people at BP operate. BP has the second largest refinery system in Germany and is the fourth largest provider of fast food after McDonald's, Burger King and North Sea. In addition, Germany is one of three global BP-research sites. In Bochum investigate 70 employees, for example in the development of new fuel (Clancy, 2010).

Discussion

BP faces legal action over Russian oil spills

BP has stepped into a new row over oil spills - this time in Russia - less than 24 hours after announcing it was going to pay out $8bn in America for polluting beaches with the Deepwater Horizon blowout. Shares in TNK-BP, the Russian joint venture, slumped 5% after a meeting chaired by Vladimir Putin heard how legal action seeking damages was being prepared over leaks from pipelines into the Ob and Yenisei rivers. Natural resources and ecology minister Yuri Trutnev, whose ministry has a track record of successfully stripping companies such as Shell of their assets over ecological misdeeds, told Putin he was planning to go to court.

TNK-BP denied it was suffering any self-inflicted environmental problems and said it had long been implementing a comprehensive programme for improving and modernising its pipeline infrastructure (Beder, 2002). “The company has also undertaken a programme for remediation of legacy lands contaminated in the Soviet period when hydrocarbons were produced without due regard to environmental protection,” it said in a statement. But while some industry watchers said BP could be caught up in political manoeuvring in the Kremlin, the company will be aware of the problems that hit Shell in 2006. The Anglo-Dutch oil group was accused of breaking various environmental laws at the Sakhalin-2 gas project and was then forced to sell down its 55% stake to state-owned Gazprom in what was seen as a display of resource nationalism (Beder, 2002).

BP has in the past tangled with Rosprirodnadzor and at one stage two years ago faced having its operating licence revoked on the Kovykta field in Eastern Siberia. But BP has more recently has been fighting its own Russian partners inside TNK after they ...