The Inimitable Tiff

The bonus incident speaks volumes about Transocean and the tone set at the top of the company. But so do two other details in the filings. First, the company’s board created a Health Safety and Environment Committee in August last year, some four months after the spill. Guess how often it met during the four months between then and the end of the year? Once.

Agenda Item 2 in the proxy is even more eye-opening. To hear the company tell it, the provision is an attempt to “discharge the members of the Board of Directors and our executive management from liability for their activities during fiscal year 2010,” explicitly including the rig explosion and oil spill. It would, Transocean says, not only prevent many shareholders from suing directors and officers entirely — whether by taking part in existing lawsuits or future ones — it would give other shareholders a narrow window of just six months to sue.