Pity BP director William Castell. He emerged from last month's annual meeting with a stinging 43 percent of the vote arrayed against him, compared to last year's opposition of just 2 percent. What a difference a year can make.
Castell himself may not have done much wrong, at least by usual governance standards. As head of the oil giant's board Safety, Ethics, and Environment Assurance Committee, he had apparently listened to, questioned, and then supported BP's executives when they promised directors that risk management was under control. But then came the Macondo blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, with its ...