The company entered an agreement to plead guilty in January to one misdemeanor violation of the CWA. On Feb. 14, a federal judge approved the deal and sentenced the company to pay $400 million in fines and penalties.
That punishment is the second-most severe sentence ever imposed on a corporation for an environmental crime committed in the United States.
BP holds the record for the most severe criminal punishment in those circumstances, having earlier been sentenced to pay about $4 billion in fines and penalties after entering its own guilty plea arising from the Gulf oil spill.
According to a U.S. Department of Justice press release, $150 million of the penalty assessed against Transocean will be paid to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation during the next three years for use to purchase, restore, and preserve areas along the Gulf coast that were adversely affected by the spill and to restore barrier islands and coastal wetlands in Louisiana and Mississippi.
Another $150 million will fund oil spill prevention and response programs in the region. That money will be paid to the National Academy of Sciences over a five-year period.
About $100 million of the money paid by Transocean will go to the U.S. treasury.
Transocean also agreed to a five-year term of probation.
A separate agreement between Transocean and the federal government to resolve Washington's civil Clean Water Act claims against the firm would require Transocean to pay a $1 billion civil penalty under the CWA - a record amount - and to implement measures aimed at preventing another spill.
That agreement was approved Tuesday by U.S. district judge Carl J. Barbier of the Eastern District of Louisiana.
