Misrepresenting the Facts: BP backpedaling on agreed-upon Deepwater Horizon Settlement Agreement

In a recent article, reporter Alison Frankel discuses Motley Rice co-founder Joe Rice’s recent blog post “Just when you think you have seen it all.” Rice, who is also a Plaintiffs' Steering Committee member for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill MDL, states in the post “In the course of 30 years of practicing law I have never seen a corporate defendant backpedal on an agreed-to settlement to the extent BP is attempting to do in the Deepwater Horizon Economic and Property Damages Class Action Settlement. BP still doesn’t understand the law or the facts of this case.”

In her article, Frankel states, “If you asked some of the best-regarded defense lawyers in the Am Law 100 to name the smartest dealmaker they ever sat across the table from, they’d say Joe Rice.”

She also states, “. . . I will tell you that the world of lawyers who negotiate settlements on the scale of BP’s deal or the tobacco agreements is very small and Rice wouldn’t have enough credibility to have done his job for as long as he has if he weren’t considered trustworthy by adversaries.”

Read the full article, Plaintiffs’ negotiator blasts BP for ‘backpedaling.’ (Posted with permission from Thomson Reuters.)

Read more about BP’s recent attempts to recant on the agreed-to Settlement Agreement in the full blog post by Rice, “Just when you think you have seen it all.”