Transocean Accounting Official Resigns (RIG, BP)

Transocean Ltd. (NYSE: RIG) was all over the news at this time last year. It was a Transocean drilling rig that exploded in the US Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 workers and dumping 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf. BP plc (NYSE: BP) has caught most of the heat for the disaster and paid most of the bills. It seemed as though Transocean may have dodged a bullet.

Late last month, the Norwegian government charged Transocean with dodging about $1.8 billion in taxes related to its sale of drilling rigs to an affiliate company based in the Cayman Islands. Even that didn’t draw too much attention to the world’s largest offshore drilling company.

Today, the company has announced the resignation of John Briscoe, the company’s Vice President, Controller, and Principal Accounting Officer. The terse press release says only that Briscoe “intends to pursue other opportunities” and that his resignation “is not related to any disagreements with the company’s accounting, financial reporting or internal control over financial reporting.”

While the press release makes no mention of the Norwegian tax case, it’s not too far-fetched to think that the two events must be related. After all, a tax evasion case followed close on by the resignation of the company’s main accounting official has got to raise some questions.

If history is any guide, Transocean will say nothing more about this matter unless the words are legally pried out of it.

The company’s shares are trading up more than 1% late this afternoon, at $63.78, in a 52-week range of $44.30-$85.98.

Paul Ausick