BP Steps Up Legal Assault on Gulf Spill Settlement Administrator

BP has produced more evidence of alleged conflicts of interest swirling around the court-appointed Louisiana lawyer who’s handing out billions of settlement dollars related to the company’s 2010 oil spill. The lawyer, Patrick Juneau of Lafayette, La., counters that BP is feigning outrage to arrest a claims-payment process that’s proving more expensive than anticipated. The oil company, Juneau contends, has known for years about his home state loyalties, which he characterizes as innocuous.

There’s truth on both sides. Juneau, in retrospect, was a dubious choice to be the supposedly disinterested court agent for distributing reparations after the horrendous spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. On the other hand, BP acquiesced in his selection in 2012 as part of an eyes-wide-open settlement, the terms of which the British company belatedly came to regret.