Exxon To Pay $4Bln

A federal appeals court has again ordered a court in Alaska to reconsider a multibillion dollar punitive damages award against ExxonMobil.

For the first time ExxonMobil should pay no more than $25 million in damages -- a fraction of the original $5 billion award.

The company was punished for spilling 42 million liters of crude oil into Prince William Sound in 1989. Later Holland reduced the award to $4 billion last year. But still ExxonMobil thinks that this figure is too high.

ExxonMobil argued before the 9th Circuit court that under a U.S. Supreme Court decision this year, punitive damages should not exceed the amount the company was forced to pay by court order to compensate victims of the oil spill. So punitive damages should be no more than $40 million or even no more than $25 million, as they say this time.