Despite having been blamed in part for causing the Deepwater Horizon explosion, Transocean just gave its executives some hefty bonus checks.
In a filing with the Securities Exchange Commission on Friday, the company said its top brass received about two thirds of their total possible safety bonus.
The filing acknowledged the "tragic loss of life" related to the disaster last April, when the offshore drilling rig the Deepwater Horizon exploded and sunk into the Gulf after a blowout, causing the largest oil spill in U.S. history.
And yet, the filing says, 2010 saw an overall drop in the number and severity of incidents for the company. As a result, Transocean claims that it had the best overall safety performance in its 57-year history, meriting the bonuses. Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! You can't cause the worst oil spill in American history and claim the best safety performance in your history. Out of respect for the Oilmageddon victms, Transocean's executives should return every penny of those bonuses.
Among some of the more outrageous disclosures in this report, Transocean president and CEO Steve Newman got a total compensation of $5.8 million--including a $374,000 bonus and a $1.1 million salary (a $200,000 raise).
The company had originally announced it wouldn't be handing out bonuses due to the disaster. One has to wonder what changed.