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 U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier in New Orleans said the British oil
company would have to live with its earlier interpretation of a
settlement agreement over the spill, in which certain businesses
could be presumed to have suffered harm if their losses reflected
certain patterns.
Barbier said BP could not now take a new position on causation of
damages, and reverse an interpretation that it had once termed "more
than fair," even if this resulted in the substantially higher
payouts that the oil company feared.
BP's view "is not only clearly inconsistent with its previous
position, it directly contradicts what it has told this court,"
Barbier wrote. "The court further finds that BP's change of position
was not inadvertent."
Geoff Morrell, a BP spokesman, said, "Awarding money to claimants
with losses that were not caused by the spill is contrary to the
language of the settlement and violates established principles of
class action law. BP intends to seek appropriate appellate remedies
to correct this error."
BP had originally projected that its settlement with businesses and
individuals harmed by the spill, would cost $7.8 billion.
As of late October it had boosted this estimate to $9.2 billion, and
said this sum could grow "significantly higher."
The company has complained that payments were being inflated by
"fictitious" claims, and because court-appointed settlement
administrator Patrick Juneau has paid out too much and compensated
businesses and individuals who were not harmed.
Earlier this month, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New
Orleans ordered Barbier to take a second look at Juneau's
methodology.
In his 38-page decision, the judge concluded that changes were
needed.
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 He directed Juneau to "implement an appropriate protocol or policy
for handling business economic loss claims in which the claimant's
financial records do not match revenue with corresponding variable
expenses."
As of Monday, about $3.81 billion has been paid out to 40,371 spill
claimants, according to Juneau's claims website. (http://www.deepwaterhorizon
economicsettlement.com/docs/statistics.pdf)
The April 20, 2010, explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig
and rupture of BP's Macondo oil well killed 11 people and triggered
the largest U.S. offshore oil spill.
Barbier also oversees litigation to allocate blame and financial
responsibility for the disaster.
The case is In re: Oil Spill by the Oil Rig "Deepwater Horizon" in
the Gulf of Mexico, on April 20, 2010, U.S. District Court, Eastern
District of Louisiana, No. 10-md-02179.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New
York; editing by Bob Burgdorfer)
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