Proof that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce cares only for Big Business, not Main Street!
Gulf Coast chambers of commerce told the U.S. Supreme Court this week that their mothership, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, does not represent them in its support of BP PLC's challenge to the class action settlement stemming from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
In an unusual public display of disagreement with the national chamber, the local affiliates, said:
"The Chamber did not seek the input nor approval of the amici affiliates, nor to our knowledge any Gulf Coast area affiliate, prior to filing its amicus brief in support of petitioner’s petition for a writ of certiorari."
The U.S. Chamber, represented by Catherine Stetson of Hogan Lovells, filed an amicus brief in BP Exploration & Production v. Lake Eugenie Land & Development. Joining in its brief were the American Tort Reform Association, the National Association of Manufacturers and the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
The Chamber supports BP's argument that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit erred when it upheld certification of a class that included members who had not suffered any injuries related to the spill. The company, represented by Theodore Olson of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, contends that the certification violated Rule 23 of the federal rules of civil procedure and the Constitution.
The Fifth Circuit decision, it adds, also conflicts with rulings by the Seventh, Eighth and D.C. Circuits.
In filing their amicus brief disputing the U.S. Chamber's views and representation, the local chambers "realized more clearly than most that the national organization does not in this instance and perhaps in other instances speak for them," said Thomas Young of Tampa, their counsel. "It's more than policy or political. It's a matter of great personal importance to the organizations and their members. They felt they had to say something at this stage."
The local chambers on the brief represent more than 7,000 businesses and 200,000 employees, Young said. As a group, they are fairly widely distributed, he added, representing Mobile and Pensacola in the northern Gulf; from Tampa towards Fort Meyers in southwestern Florida; and New Orleans and other parts of Louisiana.
"I had heard from several of the amici that they had reached out on their own to the national chamber through various avenues and were met with either silence or lip service," he said. "These are business people and they operate on a handshake, and when an agreement is reduced to paper and a contract, to them it's sacrosanct. It struck these several chambers and their thousands of members as odd to renege on a deal or an agreement that seems so clear cut."
A U.S. Chamber spokesman said in a written statement:
"The U.S. Chamber of Commerce provides a national voice on behalf of businesses of every size in every sector on policy and legal issues affecting our country's economy, and that's the case here. From time to time local groups will take a different position on a particular issue and we respect their right to do so."
However, in their amicus brief, the local chambers suggest the national Chamber's interests are much narrower than it would have the high court believe.
Citing research by Public Citizen, the group told the high court that "only 1,500 entities (significantly less than 3 million) provided 94 percent of [the Chamber's] contributions in 2012. More than half of its contributions came from just 64 donors. So the bulk of the Chamber's funding appears to come from large, well-funded corporate concerns, not the 'mom-and-pop shops' the Chamber claims and certainly not these amici affiliates."
The U.S. Chamber spokesman said: "Some members of the plaintiffs' bar have seized on the settlement agreement as an opportunity to seek a windfall for persons who cannot show any injury caused by the spill. The Chamber's brief explains that this type of opportunism is inconsistent with the agreement's provisions and the settling parties' expectations."
However, the local chambers argue in their brief that—contrary to the national chamber's brief—BP designed the compensation system; lobbied for district court approval; attested to its adequacy and fairness under oath; and initially defended it before the Fifth Circuit.
By reinforcing BP's version of the facts, the local group said, the national chamber "serves the express interests of a foreign corporation at the expense of a very large number of its affiliates and individual business members."
Young, assisted on the brief by Jean Champagne of the Landson Response Group, an environmental and catastrophic-claims firm, said the local chambers have learned a harsh lesson: "The smaller local chambers are Main Street and the U.S. Chamber is Wall Street. And, like everyone else in America, they're realizing that Wall Street is not on their side."
Read more: http://www.nationallawjournal.com/id=1202672813833/Affiliates-Split-With-National-Chamber-on-BP-Settlement#ixzz3FergolH7
BP has manipulated this whole thing, and the icing on the cake is that they have the Chamber selling out the victims on the Gulf to a foreign corporation! The same Chamber that has secretly started and currently owns several Courthouse and online newspapers designed to brainwash bored jurors about to be picked for jury duty. Check out the Louisiana Record; Southeast Texas Record and West Virginia Record for starters. They are lower than the belly of a snake!
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