BP has engaged another front in its public relations campaign over the Horizon Deepwater oil spill fiasco. The energy conglomerate is now taking on combatants on Twitter—in a concerted effort to quell increasing criticism aimed at the company in the Twitterverse. BP has upped its Twitter followers to over 16,000 from around 2,000 over the course of a month. The company is providing updates of its ongoing response efforts on Twitter.

Part of the problem is that BP has a Twitter nemesis—since May another Tweeter that has been lampooning BP’s efforts at managing the reputational fallout of the oil spill. And that nemesis—BPGlobalPR—not only has more than 10 times as many followers as BP itself—at over 180,000 on Tuesday—but also has stronger search engine (SEO) ties. BPGlobalPR came up first on a Google search of BP and Twitter, which means that so far the fake PR tweeter is winning the battle for online dominance.

A ruling by the US Supreme Court last Thursday effectively ended US jurisdiction in so-called foreign cubed cases. These lawsuits are where foreign shareholders in foreign companies listed in foreign exchanges seek to bring cases against those companies in US courts.
 
The Court threw out a case brought by three Australian shareholders against Aussie bank NAB. The shareholders claimed that they had been misled on the performance of the bank's US mortgage servicing subsidiary. But the justices said that the section of the Exchange Law that they were using was never intended to cover foreign companies or their foreign shareholders especially when those securities were bought on a foreign exchange. This was despite the alleged fraud happening within the US.
 
The ruling has massive implications for a number of foreign companies who are currently being sued by overseas shareholders in US courts. These companies include Porsche, Vivendi, EADS, Infineon and Alstom. While these companies will still be sued by their investors in their home jurisdictions, they will now in all likelihood escape trial in the US.
 
Shareholders like to sue in the US because the securities laws are seen to favor investors over corporate management. 

With more than 100 federal and state cases already having been filed in connection with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, it is hardly surprising that BP has hired advisers to help it sort out and control its liability exposure.

As Ron Fink reported on June 7, BP has waived its right to seek protection under a federal law that could have limited its liability to $75 million.