BP did not respond adequately to local complaints of intimidation in relation to the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline eight years ago, the British government said on Wednesday.The Department for Business said in a reportthat BP failed to identify and adequately respond to “complaints of intimidation against affected communities” by security forces in north-east Turkey.

BP is the largest shareholder in the BTC pipeline consortium, which transfers oil from Baku in Azerbaijan to an export terminal at Ceyhan on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast.

The report said: “By not taking adequate steps in response to such complaints, [the company] failed to adequately safeguard against the risk of local partners undermining the overall consultation and grievance process.”

The ruling comes after six environment and human rights groups, including The Corner House and Friends of the Earth, filed a complaint against BP eight years ago under the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. The guidelines comprise a set of voluntary principles and standards for responsible business conduct but are not legally binding.

The complainants alleged that the company had breached the guidelines in five instances, including exerting undue influence on the process of negotiating and drafting the terms of agreements with the relevant governments; seeking exemptions with respect to environmental, health and safety legislation; failing to disclose relevant information and consulting with the affected communities.

In its report, the government said that in four out of the five instances, BP acted in accordance with the guidelines, but in one instance, the UK company’s actions were inconsistent. It said BP did not respond adequately to allegations of intimidation in Turkey.

”Accordingly, the UK NCP considers that in relation to complaint 4, the company’s activities in this particular region were not in accordance with Chapter V paragraph 2(b) of the [OECD] Guidelines,” the report said.

“Public funders knew about the intimidation, but failed to check whether BP had adequate procedures in place to address and remedy it,” said Nicholas Hildyard of The Corner House.

“They ploughed ahead with the project anyway for political reasons. Western governments appear to have been willing to sacrifice the human rights of those living along its route in order to grab the Caspian’s oil for the West.”

The ruling gives BP three months to review and report on what it can do to strengthen its procedures to address the identified failings.

BP said it accepted the report’s recommendations that it should “consider and report on ways that could strengthen procedures to identify and respond to reports of alleged intimidation by local pipeline security and other alleged breaches of the Voluntary Principles”.

However, the company said it did not accept the findings that in one area of the pipeline in Turkey, the activities of BTC were inconsistent with the OECD guidelines
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