The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned a $1.5 million award to ex-NBA All Star David West, who claimed he qualified for a payout in the BP oil spill settlement because he earned less in 2010 than in 2009.

Reuters reporter Alison Frankel explains that West “was in the fourth year of a five-year, $45 million contract with the New Orleans Hornets when the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded in 2010. West was paid every penny of the $45 million he was owed under his contract, including the full amount he was due in the year after the spill. He nevertheless argued – and the settlement administrator agreed – that under the definitions and formulas in BP settlement, he qualified for a payout for economic losses because he earned less in 2010 than in 2009. The 5th Circuit shut that right down.”

5th Circuit Judge Andrew Oldham, who wrote for the panel, didn’t see it that way: “In 2010, he earned exactly what he was entitled to receive under his contract.”

Read the Reuters article.

Two high-profile Texas attorneys were sued by a fishing boat captain who said they were involved in a scam to cheat BP Plc out of millions of dollars with false compensation claims for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, reports Bloomberg.

Houston lawyer Tammy Tran said in a complaint Thursday that thousands of Vietnamese-American fishermen and women had their identities faked or stolen in the fraud, bankrolled by lawyers Bob Hilliard and John Cracken. Plaintiffs blame the lawyers in part for obstructing their efforts to pursue their own claims for payments under BP’s restitution program, the report says.

“Tran is seeking more than $100 million in punitive damages from Hilliard and Cracken to compensate the immigrants,” according to Bloomberg. “Many of them claim to have suffered mental anguish from “nightmarish memories” of Vietnam’s communist regime, revived by federal agents knocking on doors to investigate the identity thefts. Compensation is also sought for homes and businesses lost while waiting for BP to pay under its seafood accord.”

Hilliard denied the allegations.

Read the story.