Guilty: BP has been convicted of environmental crime in South Africa – and could now face massive fines | BISouthAfrica
This week the high court in Pretoria found BP guilty on eight charges of BP now faces potentially big fines – and the door is open for more and easier private criminal prosecutions of environmental crimes.The high court in Pretoria this week found the company guilty on eight counts of building petrol stations without first obtaining the necessary environmental clearance.
It could also mean the creation of a special non-governmental vehicle specifically geared to train up environmental lawyers and entrepreneurs, funded by the proceeds of the fines against BP.BP says ‘everybody that is anyone’ in SA has made environmental ‘mistakes’ – and their confessions shouldn’t be held against them
During the course of the trial BP argued, sometimes vociferously, that Uzani had no right to prosecute it and that Erasmus was out to enrich himself. It also said that it was being put in double jeopardy, because it had already paid civil fines in a"rectification process" commonly used in cases where environmental rules are broken.
"We have come to the realisation that this metaphoric well which is Earth may, without intervention, become irreversibly poisoned," Spilg said in his judgment. BP argued that none of the filling stations it built were in environmentally sensitive areas, and that there were adequate measures in place to prevent environmental disasters.
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