Macondo fallout will last decades

THE LEGAL fall-out from last year’s Deepwater Horizon disaster could take more than 20 years to resolve, market sources are suggesting. A tangle of suits and counter-suits involving the rigs owners and operators will become one of the most complex and time-consuming consumer legal sagas ever, eclipsing even the Exxon Valdez litigation, the last claim of which was finally settled in January this year, a full 23 years after the disaster.