The US District Court in New Orleans, Louisiana, picked Louis Freeh to investigate the claims. Mr Freeh, who headed the agency from 1993-2001,  will be responsible for investigating why the oil company faces a compensation bill far exceeding what it expected and if the office administering compensation is to blame, the FT says.  

Misconduct

Judge Carl Barbier, who will hear the case, was cited in a court order saying that Mr Freeh was appointed to look into ‘any other possible ethical violations or other misconduct’ within the office administering compensation. According to the judge, Mr Freeh would also make suggestions after further investigating the complaints. The former Federal Bureau of Investigation head now runs his own risk management firm, the Financial Times reports.

US oil companies win

Meanwhile, US oil companies have posted victories in the courts after battling the US Securities and Exchange Commission in a fight that would have ordered them to publicly disclose their payments to governments, the Financial Times reports.
The ruling shot down the SEC’s attempts to create regulations to further implement the 2010 Dodd-Frank legislation and emphasized that financial reports should go confidentially to the SEC instead of publicly.