Point of Contention: Should BP Be Banned?

Today’s edition of Headlines@UVA cites an essay from Darden professor Edward Hess in Bloomberg BusinessWeek, published Thursday, arguing that BP’s “sordid” safety record merits at least a temporary suspension of its right to do business in the U.S.

It’s a provocative thought. Should legal companies be banned for doing business for repeated rules violations? Or would that just punish thousands of its ordinary American employees?

Read the article and drop a comment below.

Darden, News, People | Friday, July 16th | By: Dan @4:40 pm       

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3 Comments to “Point of Contention: Should BP Be Banned?”

  1.  CR UVa | July 16, 2010 @ 5:54 pm

    At a time where unemployment remains low and is showing little positive momentum, this idea should not even be considered, never mind the prospect of our government looking a little too much like that of Venezuela.

    This whole experience should be a wake-up call for BP, who is now hemorrhaging money and customers. They will be forced simply by the people to change, because their business here may dry up naturally rather than being forced out. And as slow as they were to fix the leak, they did do so, and they should at least be given a little credit for that mcuh.

  2.  OUTSIDER | July 19, 2010 @ 1:48 am

    I believe that banning BP at at time like this would slow the clean up process. The company right now does not need dwindling funds. The clean up process is and will continue to be extremely costly. Punishing Bp and shortening the funds will only lead to the necessity of other groups pitching in, which has already started to happen.
    In the end the opposite is what should happen. BP obviously realizes that they are to blame for the incident and needs funds to continue the clean up effort. With extra customer support and a cessation of criticism BP can stop defending its self and spend its time putting forth a better clean up effort and possible establish “green” organizations and groups that will stay around long after the effects of this disaster and make the country a better place.

  3.  John | July 19, 2010 @ 12:50 pm

    If we banned oil companies with a bad environmental record, we would ban many companies, not just BP.

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