Project Darcy Day One

Highlights

 * getting to know everybody (new team) - fun :) From today on its Johnny, Claire, Miguel, Avner and Anton working on this
 * main point on the agenda: first attempts in... everything
 * finding sources
 * developing a data input method
 * etc
 * lots of talking, planing and experimenting
 * ... and following first leads: Company One (with no obvious BP connection) is registered in Singapore, but also has a US address... then, searching for the address, it turns out it is in fact where Company B, a BP subsidiary, is registered as well. Still just a lead, but not unlikely there is a connection...
 * other curiosities were to follow...
 * bottom line: having identified some 50 companies likely to be in the BP family tree (with BP plc in the center)

Sunbury Secretaries Limited
Listed as company secretary in BP Exploration Company Limited. When we pulled the records of BP Exploration Company from Companies House and it showed profits of $842 million in 2012 so clearly a "beast". Then we thought Sunbury must be a BP owned vehicle for performing company secretary services - BP would not use a shell structure for corporate governance of such a large entity like BP Exploration Company.

This appeared to be confirmed by a Google search "Sunbury Secretaries Limited BP" which finds the following companies with BP in the title also apparently using Sunbury Secretaries as secretary...


 * BP INTERNATIONAL LIMITED
 * BP OIL UK LIMITED
 * BP CHEMICALS LIMITED
 * BP EXPLORATION OPERATING COMPANY LIMITED
 * BP SHIPPING LIMITED
 * BP GAS MARKETING LIMITED
 * BP CAPITAL MARKETS P.L.C.
 * AIR BP LIMITED
 * bp exploration (angola) limited
 * BP MARINE LIMITED
 * bp exploration (alpha) limited
 * BP PENSIONS LIMITED
 * BP EXPLORATION (SHAH DENIZ) LIMITED

BUT... we then pulled a search on Sunbury Secretaries itself from Company House and it shows it is owned by Pricewaterhouse Cooper Legal LLC - with one pound of paid up capital. So PwC is handling company secretary issues for a group of BP companies... when we started to look down the list and it appears as if the transfer was happening all on the same day... July 1, 2010. Is it possible therefore that the mechanism was designed in some way to limit liability in the fall out from Deepwater Horizon?''