LONDON, Dec 17 (Reuters) - Oil company BP Plc openedup a new front in its battle with litigants in its U.S. oilspill trial on Tuesday, filing a fraud suit against Mikal Watts,the lawyer who represented seamen claiming economic injury as aresult of the disaster.
In a statement, BP said it had also asked for payments fromthe Seafood Settlement Compensation program, into which it haspaid $2.3 billion, to be suspended while its allegations areinvestigated.
In its lawsuit BP claims some of Watts's clients were"phantoms" carrying social security numbers that belonged toeither living people that were not the named claimants or insome cases to people who were dead.