Halliburton oil spill conspiracy leads company to plead guilty to destroying critical evidence in the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill in 2010. The Halliburton oils spill conspiracy led to one criminal charges by the Justice Department.

Halliburton will pay the maximum allowable fine of $200,000 for their part in covering up the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Halliburton will be on probation for three years. Halliburton has also been ordered to continue cooperating in the government’s criminal probe of the oil spill. In a separate action, Halliburton made a voluntary $55 million contribution to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

The Justice Department filed one criminal charge against Halliburton in the oil spill conspiracy. Halliburton released a statement saying their violation was a misdemeanor because they deleted records that were made after the oil spill. In the statement, Halliburton said “The Department of Justice has agreed that it will not pursue further criminal prosecution of the company.”

The oil spill conspiracy damaged Halliburton’s reputation, along with the international reputations of BP and Transocean, the company that operated the Deepwater Horizon rig. The rig’s explosion killed 11 workers and polluted hundreds of miles of beaches. Halliburton, BP and Transocean have all pled guilty to a criminal charge related to the spill.

In passing the judgment, the Justice Department said before the drilling the well, Halliburton recommended that BP include 21 metal centralizing collars to stabilize the cement. BP used six metal centralizing containers. The government found that Halliburton ordered workers to destroy computer simulations that showed little difference between using six and 21 collars during the internal investigation. Halliburton said BP was neglectful when they did not follow Halliburton’s advice.

The presidential commission that investigated the Gulf oil spill found that Halliburton officials knew before the explosion that the cement mixture was unstable but still went ahead with the cementing.

The commission also found that BP received the lab tests neglected to respond. The report said “There is no indication that Halliburton highlighted to BP the significance of the foam stability data or that BP personnel raised any questions about it.”

Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, said “This could impact how the civil litigation is resolved, potentially imposing more liability on Halliburton than we originally thought,”.

It may also work in favor of BP, which has argued that while it made serious mistakes it shares responsibility for the accident with Halliburton and Transocean.

BP agreed to pay $4.5 billion in penalties and pleaded guilty to 14 criminal charges related to the explosion last November.