By Quentin Langley
How do you guarantee that your investigation will not be seen as independent? First, set it up internally. Second, staff it with your own lawyers.
It would be absurd for me to claim that the conclusions of BP's investigation into Deepwater Horizon are wrong. I have no expertise in this. But the presentation is completely wrong. No-one will have confidence in the report - not BP's partners and not its critics.
The lead author insists that the lawyers helped with the internal logic of the argument. Lawyers certainly have that training and can help with that. But lawyers also care about liability. If you ask lawyers for their opinion on a report like this they are sure to guide you towards a wording that downplays your liability. They wouldn't be doing their job if they didn't.
In any crisis situation, the instinct of lawyers is always to stay silent. But your publics - customers, business partners, regulators and neighbours want, and expect, transparency. In today's digital space they are going to insist on it, and, ultimately, they will get it.
Unsurprisingly, BP's partners, Halliburton and Transocean, have not been welcoming of this report seeing at part of BP's strategy to pass the buck.
If you assert your right to silence, people are likely to think the worst. Possibly they will jump to conclusions even worse than the reality you want to hide. Lawyers have the wrong instincts for this type of role.
BP needs to face up to the fact that the way out of this is to tell the truth, tell it all, and tell it now. But they also need a verifiable methodology to demonstrate their commitment to transparency. This report is not it.
See the $Wall Street Journal on this topic
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