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BP's lawyers helped prepare its spill investigation
BP PLC's lawyers helped prepare its internal investigation into its Gulf of Mexico drilling disaster, according to the report's lead author, raising questions about the study's impartiality.
The report, led by Mark Bly, was presented by BP as an impartial investigation into what caused the April 20 explosion, which killed 11 workers and caused the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history. But outside experts have been skeptical, saying its conclusions seemed convenient for BP's legal position.
The 300-plus-page report was the first in-depth attempt to explain what caused the Deepwater Horizon disaster and will likely be a key document in the hundreds of lawsuits filed against the companies involved.
Mr. Bly, who was recently promoted by new BP Chief Executive Bob Dudley to oversee a new safety division at the company, said in an interview Wednesday that lawyers assigned to the investigation team helped "with the logic of the writing" but didn't influence his conclusions.
Immediately after the report was released on Sept. 8, a BP spokesman said that lawyers "reviewed" it and provided "legal advice and counsel to the [investigative] team," but wouldn't elaborate on what exactly that entailed.
At that time, some outside experts questioned the report's conclusions.
"It certainly raises a question of whether [the lawyers] considered the legal implications of the report," before releasing it, Mark Brown, a partner at Bristows, a U.K. law firm, said at the time.