Story highlights

BP seeks review of appeals court ruling on its multibillion-dollar compensation bill

It faces additional payments to businesses that claim losses not directly linked to the disaster

BP has complained the program has paid excessive or false claims

An explosion sank the Deepwater drilling platform in 2010, killing 11 workers

CNN  — 

BP will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review an appeals court ruling on the multibillion-dollar compensation bill the company faces over the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the British energy giant said in a statement Wednesday.

The company faces billions of dollars in additional payments to businesses that claim loss or injury that cannot be directly linked to the disaster after a federal appeals court in New Orleans denied it a rehearing on the matter. The court ruled that businesses don’t have to prove they were directly harmed by the 2010 oil spill to collect from the settlement.

“BP will seek review by the US Supreme Court of the Fifth Circuit decisions relating to the compensation of claims for losses with no apparent connection to the Deepwater Horizon spill,” the statement said. “In addition, BP will ask the Fifth Circuit not to issue its mandate until the Supreme Court has considered the matter.”

The British company has been battling a claims administrator for months over the interpretation of a settlement agreement and the way losses are calculated.

An explosion sank the Deepwater drilling platform off the coast of Louisiana in April 2010, killing 11 workers and injuring 16 more.

The company has already paid more than $12 billion in compensation, and more than $14 billion for crisis response and cleanup of the oil spill.

“No company would agree to pay for losses that it did not cause, and BP certainly did not when it entered into this settlement,” the company statement said. “BP will continue to fight to return the settlement to its original, explicit, and lawful purpose – the compensation of claimants who suffered actual losses due to the spill.”

In August, a federal judge in New Orleans ordered BP to put up nearly $130 million for the next three months of Gulf oil spill settlements despite the oil company’s complaints about excessive costs.

BP has alleged the Court Supervised Settlement Program has been approving excessive or false claims from people or businesses that say they were damaged by the Deepwater Horizon blowout in 2010.