ALBANY — The BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico cost New York’s pension fund tens of millions of dollars — and now the state will take the lead in recouping losses from the spill-savaged British oil company firm, a federal judge ruled yesterday.
Texas District Court Judge Keith Ellison appointed New York state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli and Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray, who oversee their states’ pension funds, as lead plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit.
They argue that BP misled investors about its safety procedures and disaster preparations prior to the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig.
New York and Ohio together lost more than $200 million as BP’s stock shed 40 percent of its value in the weeks after the disaster, according to Cordray.