BP has had its submission to appeal a multi-billion dollar settlement arising from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill rejected by the US Supreme Court

The decision will come as a blow to Kirkland & Ellis, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, Dentons and Arnold & Porter, all of which acted as legal counsel for the oil giant.

The court refused to hear BP's claim that the 2012 settlement was unconstitutional because it provided damages to people not injured by the disaster. 

The Economic and Property Damages Settlement Agreement, drawn up in 2012 for those affected by the spill, is now final, allowing class action claims to be filed at any point over the coming six months.

The Supreme Court's decision comes after the release of a second audit by consulting firm McGladrey, which reported that 99.5% of claims within the parameters of the settlement were processed correctly.

BP's lead attorney throughout the settlement and appeal has been Kirkland senior litigation partner Richard Godfrey. Gibson Dunn also advised the oil giant with a team lead by Theodore Olson, co-chair of the firm's crisis management team.

Dentons class action defence specialist Jeffrey Lennard and Arnold & Porter environmental litigation partner Daniel Cantor also joined in-house counsel James Neath and Mark Holstein in representing BP.

Joe Rice, co-founder of plaintiff litigation firm Motley Rice and lead negotiator in the settlement with BP said: "I am gratified that, finally, our clients' claims can be processed, as they should have been long ago if not for BP's cruel antics that were allowed to delay the settlement that BP itself agreed to…Now, once and for all, they have to pay for what they caused to businesses and people throughout the Gulf Coast."

Geoff Morrell, BP America's senior vice president of communications and external affairs, said: "When it became apparent that the settlement agreement was being misinterpreted, we sought a remedy in the courts. We were successful before the Fifth Circuit in correcting the 'matching' accounting rules fashioned in error by the claims program, and we are hopeful that the new policies will improve the program's compliance with the terms of the settlement agreement. Unfortunately, however, the Supreme Court has declined to review the lower court decisions relating to causation.

"We nevertheless remain concerned that the program has made awards to claimants that suffered no injury from the spill – and that the lawyers for these claimants have unjustly profited as a result. On behalf of all our stakeholders, we will therefore continue to advocate for the investigation of suspicious or implausible claims and to fight fraud where it is uncovered. In doing so, we hope to prevent further exploitation of our commitment to compensating all those legitimately harmed by the spill."

In a separate motion filed in October, Kirkland and Covington & Burling asked for a retrial or a revised judgment on behalf of BP over a court ruling that found the oil giant had acted with gross negligence over the 2010 oil spill which killed 11 oil rig workers.