There have not been any major developments in oil spill litigation in Mississippi in the last few weeks. More cases have been filed, but that is expected and more will be filed going forward.

I am not aware of a defendant filing an answer to the complaints yet. BP has been filing motions to stay the cases pending transfer to an MDL. Transocean is seeking to limit its liability in a Houston court and is filing documents related to that case in Mississippi cases.

Transocean seeks to limit its liability from the spill to less than $27 million. If Transocean is successful, there could be a huge political and public backlash that results in the strategy backfiring. Of course, Transocean has probably considered this and decided to go for the limitation anyway.

Transocean’s stock price has been in a free fall since the explosion along with BP’s.