Word: exxon
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...came up with a policy and calculated the appropriate premium. But disasters have a way of defying the laws of probability. Recent years have witnessed an extraordinary string: the Piper Alpha oil-rig blowout in the North Sea, the explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland, the Exxon Valdez oil spill and America's Hurricane Hugo. Last week Lloyd's announced that it would post a $980 million deficit for 1988 -- the most recent year on which books can be closed, since they are kept open for three years to allow for claims to be filed. And worse...
Environmental sensitivity is now as required an attitude in polite society as is, say, belief in democracy or aversion to polyester. But now that everyone from Ted Turner to George Bush, Dow to Exxon has professed love for Mother Earth, how are we to choose among the dozens of conflicting proposals, restrictions, projects, regulations and laws advanced in the name of the environment? Clearly not everything with an environmental claim is worth doing. How to choose...
...cost of litigation soaring -- defending a patent in court can cost ( $250,000 to $2 million -- entrepreneurs are financing lawsuits for inventors in exchange for a piece of future royalties. A New York City company, Refac Technology, has sued more than 2,000 companies, including IBM, Kodak, Sears, Exxon and Sony, on behalf of small inventors. Refac raised more than $3 million from investors to finance a series of suits by Gordon Gould, inventor of the laser, against the likes of AT&T and Xerox. The companies settled. Refac's revenues last year, mainly from royalty fees, exceeded $10 million...
...mammoth slick that oozed out of the Exxon Valdez tanker into Alaska's Prince William Sound two years ago may have been tough on otters and seagulls, but it was black gold for the legal profession. The 1989 disaster generated more than 300 lawsuits. Last week the largest was settled barely a month before it was due to go to trial, as Exxon reached an agreement with Alaska and the U.S. The cost: a guilty plea to three criminal charges that the company negligently discharged crude oil into navigable waters and killed migratory wildlife, and fines that may eventually total...
...Thus Exxon's oil slick, which holds the North American record for volume (11 million gal.), cleanup costs ($2.5 billion) and bad publicity, has now set a new high mark for penalty payouts -- almost 40 times as great as any previous spill. Nonetheless, one critic denounced the settlement as an inadequate "back-room deal," while company chairman Lawrence G. Rawl declared that it "will not have a noticeable effect" on Exxon's financial results. But Attorney General Dick Thornburgh said it "sends a very important signal that there are criminal consequences for this kind of activity...