At the same time, thousands of miles away in Alaska, BP was also under scrutiny for a 46,000-gallon oil spill in November 2009, which a whistleblower had claimed was directly the result of the company's cost-cutting measures that negatively impacted its safety and maintenance programs.
The company's Alaska arm was on probation when the spill occurred, and, following a lengthy investigation, BP's probation officer had petitioned the court seeking a revocation of its probation, asserting that the November 2009 spill amounted to "criminal negligence" and violated the terms of BP's probation agreement of November 2007, signed a year after the massive spill on the North Slope. Again, no senior officials were held accountable, and after a federal court hearing, a judge declined to revoke the company's probation.