BP got “the punishment it deserves”, the US attorney general, Loretta Lynch, said on Monday as she announced a record settlement of more than $20bn arising from the oil firm’s fatal 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The deal, also agreed with the five states most affected by the spill, ends five years of legal fights over the disaster, which claimed 11 lives and pumped nearly 134m gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico over 87 days…“The steep penalty should inspire BP and its peers to take every measure necessary to ensure that nothing like this can ever happen again.” [said Lynch]…The spill “inflicted unprecedented damage”, said Lynch. “Ecosystems were disrupted. Businesses were shuttered. Countless men and women lost their livelihoods and their sense of security.”…Lynch said that the settlement was “not designed to discourage any valid economic activity in the Gulf”. “What it is designed to do, however, is not only to compensate for damages to provide a way forward for the health and safety of the Gulf, but let other companies know they are going to be responsible for the harm that occurs should accidents like this happen in the future…