BP on Tuesday was once again attempting to oust the man responsible for doling out billions of dollars in settlement money to businesses claiming they were hampered by the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
It’s the oil giant’s latest legal effort to limit its losses from the nation’s worst offshore oil spill. BP says the claims administrator, Patrick Juneau, failed to disclose that he worked on previous oil spill litigation for the state of Louisiana when he was hired to oversee settlement payouts.
Attorneys for Juneau told the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that he hid nothing improper and his record of work for the state was public well before BP and others agreed to his hiring in 2012. All sides hailed the settlement when it was approved in 2012. But BP later argued that Juneau was misinterpreting the settlement and paying claims to businesses that didn’t deserve them.
U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier and the 5th Circuit ruled that under the settlement BP agreed to, businesses do not have to prove they were directly harmed by the spill to collect money—only that they made less money in the three to eight months after the spill.
The U.S. Supreme Court also rejected an appeal from BP, and a settlement that BP once estimated would cost it nearly $8 billion now is expected to cost billions more. Barbier rejected BP’s arguments for removing Juneau last year, leading to Tuesday’s hearing. The three-judge panel gave no indication when it would rule. FuelFix.com has the full story.
