A US jury has rejected claims that Kevin Costner and his business partner duped fellow actor Stephen Baldwin and a friend out of millions of dollars from a BP contract for using oil clean-up devices in the aftermath of the 2010 Gulf of Mexico spill.

A lawyer for Kevin Costner told a court his fame was the only reason fellow Hollywood actor Stephen Baldwin and another person were suing him over their investments in an oil clean-up device tried out after BP’s spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Two Hollywood stars could spend the next two weeks in a New Orleans courtroom on opposing sides in a legal drama.

BP has been cleared to start burning oil and gas piped up from its broken well as part of a pledge to more than triple how much crude it stops from spewing into the Gulf of Mexico.