Monday’s Supreme Court ruling against BP could mean financial compensation for many Southwest Louisiana businesses that suffered financial losses as a result of the company’s massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico more than four years ago.

The court rejected BP’s request to undo a 2012 district court settlement in which the company agreed to pay uncapped damages to businesses and individuals affected by the April 2010 spill.

Matthew Lundy, a partner in the Lake Charles law firm of Lundy, Lundy, Soileau & South and a court-appointed member of the plaintiff’s steering committee, said the high court’s ruling means BP must continue to pay claims stemming from the spill.

Lundy, whose firm has been involved in the case’s litigation, said BP initially thought it would cost $7.8 billion to settle all of the spill’s claims.

“They recognized that it was going to be much more,” Lundy said. “So they tried to get out of it; they tried to renege on the agreement.”

Lundy said plaintiffs seeking compensation from BP must meet certain formulas to prove causation for financial damages. The formulas, he added, were established in the company’s original 2012 settlement in the Eastern District Court of New Orleans, the same agreement the London-based oil company petitioned the high court to undo.

“If a business or an individual meets the formula, then causation is presumed,” Lundy said. “Your damages have been presumed to have been caused by the spill. Then the claims administrator applies the formulas to calculate the damages.”

One of the formulas established was the “V-shaped formula,” in which a business must demonstrate a decline in revenue by certain percentages and then an increase in revenue in 2011, Lundy said.

He said that the closer a plaintiff is to the Gulf the easier it is for that person or business to make the V in the formula.

Formulas were also established for businesses that failed as a result of the spill and new businesses that were affected financially. Plaintiffs can go to deepwaterhorizionsettlements.com to download the settlement from the site’s economic and property damages page, which contains the various formulas to prove causation.

Lundy estimated that hundreds of businesses in the Lake Area could be eligible to receive compensation from BP.

“Across the Gulf there were thousands of businesses that were impacted,” Lundy said. “If you go to Cameron Parish there were scores of seafood-related businesses that were impacted and seriously harmed or even shut down.”

Lundy said the high court’s ruling this week vindicated the plaintiffs and their attorneys.

“It’s been a long fight trying to hold BP to their word,” he said. “They tried to back out of the contract that they signed so they could save a buck. We’re happy that the Supreme Court saw through BP’s distortions and delivered a great victory for the people of Gulf and Southwest Louisiana.”

Deepwater Horizon, a semisubmersible offshore oil drilling rig owned by Transocean and leased by BP, exploded on the evening of April 20, 2010, killing 11 people, injuring 17 and spilling about 206 million gallons of oil into the Gulf. The disaster resulted in the largest oil spill in U.S. history.(MGNonline)