"I think the money that BP paid out was as much an admission that you will see from any company. They didn't take tens of billions of dollars off their bottom lines as a favor to Halliburton."

As the Licenced Operator of the field BP lived up to and honoured what it saw as its obligations, it did this waiving its right to hide behind the 75 million US$ liability cap. It did all this voluntarily while your President "Grandstanding" for the press was shooting his mouth off about "kicking ass" and keeping his "boot on the necks of BP". No such talk from Saint Obama about either Halliburton or TransOcean sharing the load although it is now perfectly apparent that it was they who were to blame to some considerable extent. Quite the contrary both Halliburton and TransOcean continued to profit from the accident by providing rigs, crews and support for the relief well drilling operations so in effect they got paid 200% extra to work on the job that they fucked up.

Not to worry though, they will be dragged through the courts and BP will have its pay day from both.

Of the other culprit, the US Regulatory Body, we have not heard a peep. Short-comings there were so bad they had to bury the shame by changing its name. Of all involved if any "body" showed that it needed reform it was them.

By the bye the emphasis was put on "that day" because the investigation was after all about the incident that occurred on the 20th April 2010, please do not be so blinkered as to suppose that if throughout the drilling of the Macondo Well the Operator and contractors put profit before safety right up until the last day the chief investigator would not mention it.

And Q is perfectly correct there is a long way to go yet, lawyers not qualified on the date of this incident will have very successful careers and retire on the proceeds from the cases arising from it. Personally I cannot wait for the reports relating to the BOP to come out, I do not think that TransOcean are so keen though.