When a class action lawsuit gets settled, the deal has to prescribe how the defendant will pay the members of the injured class and who can be part of that class.

BP, the global energy company, is embroiled in a dispute over this second question – the definition of the class of businesses that can claim they were injured as a result of the Deepwater Horizon spill. Currently, a lower court is administering the settlement fund in a way that compensates hundreds of people who weren’t injured at all. This approach is simply wrong and constitutes an abuse of the legal process.

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