On Friday a federal appeals court in New Orleans signed off on the settlement of one component of BP (BP)'s hellishly complicated liability for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Plaintiffs' lawyers celebrated the upholding of a pact that has already channeled billions of dollars to private businesses claiming harm from the environmental disaster. On a 2-1 vote, a three-member panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld a trial judge's earlier approval of a settlement originally valued at $7.8 billion and designed to pay economic-loss claims to certain businesses in the five-state Gulf region (Louisiana, Texas, Florida, Mississippi, and Alabama).