The Deepwater Horizon settlement case is chock-full of dysfunction, according to a whistleblower who says he worked on an independent audit which focused on the settlement process.
The whistleblower, who allegedly worked with McGladrey LLP, an accounting firm, said Wednesday that the Deepwater Horizon audit, which studied if damage claims were being handled properly, has few answers to back up claims that all is going well with the settlement.
Additionally, the whistleblower has filed an anonymous internal ethics complaint, claiming that the McGladrey accounting firm hardly knew anything about the damage claims process, which is why they failed to produce an accurate audit.
And the whistleblower is blaming McGladrey’s partner, Mark McNamee, for increasing the cost of the audit, taking it from $1.4 million to $14 million, ten times the original budget.
“While on the Deepwater Horizon Engagement, Mark [McNamee] encouraged everyone to stay in the city of New Orleans on the weekends to ‘sightsee’ and charge the time and expenses during those weekends to ’working’ hours while in our hotel rooms,” the whistleblower said in a narrative provided to the Louisiana Record. “[McNamee] also said: “The client is willing to pay whatever costs that we incur during this engagement as long as we can get the job done.’”
Though McNamee has not commented to the media yet on the claims, Sara Webber Laczo with McGladrey LLP said it is the firm’s policy to investigate any allegations of internal abuse.