The company said it had learned within the past week about a potential conflict involving two members of the claims administrator’s appeals panel who were reviewing payments while their law firms were submitting claims. BP’s motion for a preliminary injunction, filed on Monday, did not name the firms or the appeals panelists.
BP also asserted potential fraud, citing a July 15 tip from its recently established fraud hotline that an employee at the claims center in Mobile, Ala., had been assisting family members in submitting “fraudulent subsistence claims” in exchange for a share of the payments.
