NEW ORLEANS: The estimated multibillion-dollar settlement between BP and lawyers representing individual and business plaintiffs in the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill was fleshed out on Wednesday in hundreds of pages of motions and exhibits.
The broad outlines of the agreement in principle reached last month, including an estimated $7.8 billion in payments for economic loss and medical claims, are unchanged in the papers filed in Federal District Court in New Orleans on Wednesday.
The agreements include total fees of $600 million for several hundred of the lawyers involved in the litigation.
“BP made a commitment to help economic and environmental restoration efforts in the Gulf Coast, and this settlement provides the framework for us to continue delivering on that promise,” said Robert W. Dudley, the company’s chief executive.
BP said that it had spent $14 billion responding to the spill and $8 billion in payments to individuals and businesses so far.
It had recorded a $37.2 billion charge in its financial statements concerning the spill, and announced in the statement on Wednesday that the settlement was “not expected to result in any increase.”
Friday is the second anniversary of the spill, which killed 11 workers aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig and sent nearly five million gallons of oil into the gulf.
While the settlement could bring an end to civil litigation with private plaintiffs, civil litigation with the federal government and gulf states has yet to be resolved, and a criminal investigation is continuing within the Department of Justice.
The agreement, including the lawyer fees, will be submitted to Judge Carl J. Barbier of Federal District Court in New Orleans, who has presided over the litigation, for his approval.
The $600 million in lawyer payments will come directly from BP and not from client settlements, said Jim Roy, a leader of the lawyers’ committee.
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