LONDON (AP) — BP confirmed yesterday that it received a demand from US authorities for advance notice of any asset sales or significant cash transfers.

The Financial Times reported that US Assistant Attorney General Tony West, who heads the Civil Division of the US Department of Justice, wrote to Rupert Bondy, BP's general counsel, on June 23. Normally the US Justice Department does not require advance notice of such deals.

"We have received the letter, and have not yet responded," said BP press officer Sheila Williams. "We will be responding in due course."

She declined to say whether the Justice Department had set a deadline.

The letter underlines the US government's intense scrutiny of BP as it struggles to cap the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, which began on April 20, and to clean up the damage.

On April 30, US Attorney General Eric Holder announced that he had dispatched a team, which included West, to New Orleans to monitor the spill. Ignacia Moreno, the assistant attorney general for the Environment and Natural Resources Division, was also part of the team.