超越“深水地平线”——墨西哥湾原油泄漏事件引发的法律思考

Beyond "Deepwater Horizon"——Legal Considerations Evoked by Mexico Gulf Oil Spill

墨西哥湾原油泄漏事故所涉及的法律关系多样复杂,既有侵权之债,又有违约之债;既有股权结构关系,又有内部治理关系;既有实体法问题,又有程序性问题。对于违约之诉,无论是石油公司还是承包商,都应尽可能利用法律上的抗辩和举证规则,合理界定和划分己方承担的责任。对小股东而言,应利用好表决权回避等制度维护自身利益,以免受大股东恣意妄为的损害或拖累;对于母公司而言,在有效利用子公司人格隔离风险的同时,应防止"法人面纱"被刺破。直接受到追索。对于如何利用法律上的法定关系或者当事人拟制形成的关系,更好地界定当事人之间的权利义务、分配收益和风险,或许可从本次漏油事件的处理中得到很多启示。同时,此次事件可能会对中国实体法和程序法的制度构建或进步产生重大影响,进而影响中国油气行业的发展轨迹和路径。

The Gulf of Mexico oil spill involved various legal relations:breach obligation and tort obligation;stock right structure relations and internal management relations;substantive law and procedural issues.For breach lawsuit,the oil company and contractors should make the widest use of demur and quoting rules,properly define and divide the responsibility of party B.For small shareholders,they should use the systems such as right to vote withdrawal as fully as possible to safeguard their own interests,as to avoid the harm of big shareholders abusing their rights or being tied down by big holders.For parent companies,while effectively utilizing the subsidiary's corporation personality to isolate the risk,they should prevent the corporation's veil from being pierced and from being directly affected by the recourse.We can summarize many inspirations from this oil spill accident,for example,how to better define rights and duties,distributable earnings and risks among parties by using legal relations or relations agreed by parties.Meanwhile,this accident might have important influence to the establishment and improvement of China's substantive laws and procedural law,thus influence the development track and routes of oil and gas sector in China.