[grumpygresh]

The end game will be interesting here. As BP’s liabilities grow and grow, the company edges closer towards bankruptcy and possibly insolvency. If the government somehow decides to take over BP (as some idiot liberals suggest), it will not have any value only a liability that will need to be borne by the taxpayers. Government lawsuits will only further deplete BP of even more value.
BP will probably fail and the government will be picking up the clean-up bill. Those harmed by the oil spill may not have any recourse unless we see another bail-out which would be very un-popular by the Left and the Right.

[KarlInOhio]

Another thing that could happen is that the UK government could act to protect BP, including allowing it to split into another company (let's call it English Petroleum) and just leave BP as a husk of a company stuck with a bunch of liabilities and no revenue. A US company couldn't do that to avoid US liabilities, but BP is a UK company. With the chilly treatment Obama has given Britain, they might not want to see their biggest company gutted just to provide financial cover to Obama.