BP Gets Slick in Trying to Undermine Gulf Oil Spill Settlement
BP needs a judicial slap in the face to remind them of their ongoing responsibilities. And pretending a well off celebrity chef did not take a loss as claimed flies in the face of obvious reality.
By Michael Hiltzik
February 23, 2014, 5:00 a.m.
It would be perfectly proper for BP, the giant British oil company, to feel a sense of corporate remorse.
After all, the firm was responsible for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion and well blowout that took 11 lives and created “immense environmental damage” in and around the gulf. (Those words were uttered by a Department of Justice official just over a year ago, when BP pleaded guilty to a dozen felony charges and agreed to pay $4 billion in penalties and fines.)
But in recent months BP has mounted a frontal assault on the settlement. The firm has placed full page ads in major newspapers, ridiculing supposedly fraudulent claims blithely paid by the settlement administrator, Louisiana lawyer Patrick Juneau — including $8 million to “celebrity chef” Emeril Lagasse.
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