BP Plc, the U.S. and plaintiffs who filed hundreds of lawsuits seeking billions of dollars for damages stemming from the largest oil spill in U.S. history are fighting over where the cases should be heard first. A panel of federal judges in Boise, Idaho, will hear arguments today on which city will host spill suits, including wrongful-death claims by families of workers killed in the April explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig. Claims include losses of revenue by Gulf Coast businesses and securities claims by holders of U.S. shares in the London-based energy company. The federal government wants the cases consolidated in federal court in New Orleans, while BP said it prefers Houston. “It all comes down to which judge the panel thinks has the intellectual firepower, experience and the docket space to handle a huge case like this,” said Edward Sherman, a Tulane Law School professor in New Orleans and mass litigation expert. The seven-judge panel, appointed by the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, meets periodically in locations around the country. The judge they choose to preside over the BP cases will make crucial legal rulings on what evidence can be used and which laws applied. Oil analyst Fadel Gheit, ...
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