Manslaughter charges increases likelihood that BP will face accusations of gross negligence. | AP Photo BP takes hit after reports of charges

BP shares were down 2 percent Tuesday morning after Bloomberg reported that federal prosecutors are considering filing manslaughter charges against managers of the oil giant for last year's explosion and spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Bloomberg said U.S. investigators are also looking for discrepancies in statements that former CEO Tony Hayward and other company leaders made to Congress “to determine whether their testimony was at odds with what they knew.” Bloomberg attributed its information to unnamed people “familiar with the matter.”


Reuters also hinted at a big financial implication at the possible criminal charges: Manslaughter charges could make it more likely for the company to face accusations that it was "grossly negligent" in the Gulf disaster.

If BP is found to be grossly negligent, the maximum possible fines it faces could rise to more than $21 billion from around $5 billion, Reuters said. And such a finding could prevent BP from forcing its partners in the Macondo well to pay their 35 percent share of the cleanup bill, now estimated at $42 billion, the news service reported.

BP shares traded down 2 percent at 9:50 a.m. GMT, Reuters said. It said the drop also came amid a feud between BP and its partners in a Russian joint venture.

Meanwhile, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported late Monday that BP and the federal government may share blame for the severity of the months-long oil gusher that followed the Deepwater Horizon explosion: “Buried deep in a 551-page technical forensic report lies new evidence that BP and the U.S. government, in their frantic attempts to get mechanisms working to stop the Gulf oil gusher last April, may have inadvertently made the situation far worse.”

“When industry experts and government overseers finally got part of the busted well's blowout preventer to work nine days after the accident, they opened a new, larger path for oil to flow, according to the report by forensic examiners at Norway-based Det Norske Veritas,” the newspaper reported. “The finding raises questions about whether the flow of oil might have been smaller at the start of the disaster, something BP has long argued as it disputes government estimates of how much crude was spilled.”