New York (Platts)--26Feb2012/745 pm EST/045 GMT

Attorneys and legal experts following the consolidated federal Macondo damages case in New Orleans said Sunday that the one-week delay in the start of the trial that BP and the Plaintiffs Steering Committee announced jointly earlier in the day likely means that the two sides are close to an agreement.

"If you are miles apart, you just go to trial and get with it," said Jeffrey Berniard, principal at the Berniard Law Firm in New Orleans. "If you are just a few feet apart you ask for the week." Berniard has clients with claims before the Gulf Coast Claims Facility, but has not filed any claims with the litigation to this point.

The case was scheduled to begin Monday morning in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana in New Orleans before Judge Carl J. Barbier.

"They may have the framework or even a monetary value and just want the time to go through everything term by term," Berniard added.

He noted that the liability decision issued last week by Barbier could have added some clarity to the talks already under way. "It always helps to establish the liability," Barbier said. "If the judge has established that in advance of trial, even for just a couple of the players, then that helps all the participants get a decent grasp on realistic damages numbers."

In that ruling last week, Barbier ruled that BP must indemnify Halliburton, its drilling contractor, against outside claims arising after the spill from the ruptured well. That came on the heels of a late January decision in which BP was ordered to indemnify Transocean, owner of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, which was destroyed by the blowout and fire on April 20, 2010 that killed 11 people.

Legal scholars are not surprised at the extension request on the evening before the trial was to start. "Settlements are always done at the last minute, sometimes even at the courthouse door," said Jacqueline L. Weaver, A.A. White Professor of Law at the University of Houston Law Center.

Weaver stressed she has no special knowledge of the trial, but says that in her experience, "if you ask for a month, that might mean that you don't agree on much but you are willing to keep talking. A week could mean that you agree on most points, maybe even have a full agreement in principle but need a day to go back over everything. Maybe they are just exhausted and need a little time to breathe. That happens all the time. But no one asks for just one or two days. A week seems like just the right amount of time."

--Gregory DL Morris, newsdesk@platts.com

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