Shell Oil to Pay $4 Million for Taking Double Profits in Oil Spill Cleanup

[GoLeft TV]

From Ring of Fire:

Shell Oil Company has been ordered to pay $4 million to settle False Claim Act allegations that it requested double reimbursements for a hazardous waste cleanup in Massachusetts. The company sought payment from the Massachusetts tank cleanup fund as well as from private insurers, Law360 reports.

Shell and Motiva Enterprises LLC requested reimbursements from Massachusetts’ Underground Storage Tank Petroleum Product Cleanup Fund program for more than 100 gas stations throughout the state. The companies did not reveal to state authorities that it also requested and received reimbursements from insurers, according to the state Attorney General Martha Coakley.

The scheme of major oil companies profiting from oil spill cleanups recently came to light after it was reported that a former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) engineer and an environmental and civil rights attorney partnered with a team of lawyers, investigators, and experts to conduct an ongoing investigation into the “double-dipping” practice.

You can read the full article here at Ring of Fire.

[aquart]

1. They were fined pocket change?

Add two zeroes, then we'll talk.

[justhanginon]

2. In so many of these cases where you hear of

multi million dollar fines you rarely seem to hear about how much money these corporations have cheated the taxpayers out of. These oil companies, banks and others scam the taxpaying public for millions of dollars in profits but I would like to know if the fine is a total of the ill gotten gains plus the fine or do they keep the profits and just pay the fine. If they pay just the fine it becomes only a cost of doing business. It seems that in articles written about these cases that those numbers should be spelled out clearly.
As a retiree, these millions sound like a lot of money but it is just pocket change to these corporations and then they get a tax write off to offset the fines.