Supreme Court: Exxon-Valdez fine slashed 90%
Now here's some real bullshit.
For those of you who may or may not remember how awful the Exxon-Valdez oil spill was, here it is in a nutshell: The tanker, bound for Washington, USA, hit Prince William Sound's Bligh Reef in Alaska and spilled 10.8 million gallons of crude oil. This has been recorded as one of the largest spills in U.S. history and one of the largest ecological disasters.
Article from 2/1/2008:
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Exxon Mobil made history on Friday by reporting the highest quarterly and annual profits ever for a U.S. company, boosted in large part by soaring crude prices.
Exxon also set an annual profit record by earning $40.61 billion in 2007 - or nearly $1,300 per second. That exceeded its previous record of $39.5 billion in 2006.
... so what happened Wednesday???
After 19 years, Exxon Mobil Corp. succeeded in getting the Supreme Court to slash the additional amount it must pay Alaskans harmed by the 1989 Valdez oil spill from the original $5 billion to $500 million.
A lower court had already cut punitive damages to $2.5 billion before Exxon appealed to the highest court.
These oil companies make so much money they clearly don't even have to care about their public image anymore. Remember when companies at least pretended not to be evil? Nowadays they can just sit back and let the corrupt judges knock down their fines which they CLEARLY can afford.
Fucking assholes.