BP's Lessons in Playing Nasty or Nice

Within weeks of the epic 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, BP apologized, acknowledged partial blame, began paying claims and cleanup costs, and sought to settle lawsuits rather than fight in court. Yet after spending more than $28 billion so far to make amends and dilute the public-relations debacle, the London-based oil giant remains enmeshed in litigation. So last year, BP tabled the charm offensive and tried bellicosity instead, accusing some Gulf businesses of submitting bogus claims and hinting broadly that the court-appointed administrator of the compensation effort might be favoring locals.

The inability of either approach to save the embattled company money became painfully clear on Sept. 4 when a federal judge in New Orleans condemned BP’s recklessness and issued findings that could inflate its environmental liability by an additional $18 billion. Now more proceedings and appeals ensure years of further litigation, and environmentalists applauded BP’s being held culpable. Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, called the ruling “an historic win for the Gulf Coast ecosystems and economies that were damaged by the BP oil spill.”