BP Looks to Have ERISA Benefits Lawsuits Dismissed

Houston, TXBritish Petroleum (BP) is reportedly looking to have lawsuits filed by employees over ERISA benefits thrown out, according to the company's attorneys.

Bloomberg reports that the company claims its employees should not be able to sue its retirement savings plan managers for investing too much in BP's stock because the workers themselves chose to make those investments.

As a result, BP asked a federal judge in Houston, Texas, to dismiss the lawsuits from a number of employees that reportedly seek to recover millions of dollars lost through the retirement plans as a result of the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last year, according to the news source.

In the lawsuits, the employees claim the managers of the retirement plan should have been aware that BP's stock was an "imprudent investment" due to the company's safety record leading up to the Deepwater Horizon disaster, which proved to be the worst offshore oil spill in US history.

According to the news source, the employee lawsuits were filed under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), and are among the significant number of cases that have been brought against BP since the oil spill.

"Participants have complete discretion whether or not to invest in the BP stock fund," company attorneys said in court documents, according to the news source. "As a result, the basis for this lawsuit is not that defendants invested participants' assets in the BP stock fund, but rather that defendants allowed plan participants to invest in that option and did not override participants' decisions to do so."

Still, a Houston area attorney who represents a number of the BP employees in the ERISA lawsuits, says that the plaintiffs plan to "vigorously oppose" the company's motion to dismiss the cases.

The lawsuits, which have been consolidated before US District Judge Keith P. Ellison, stem from the fact that BP's share price dropped approximately 50 percent in the weeks following the oil spill in the Gulf.

BP's decision to seek a motion to dismiss the ERISA lawsuits comes just days after US Magistrate Judge Sally Shushan in New Orleans refused the company's request to order US officials to present e-mails in a case claiming BP underestimated the size of the oil spill, according to a previous Bloomberg article.