A number of news sources are reporting that the US attorney-general, Eric Holder, will later today announce a settlement with BP over the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig at the Macondo oil field in 2010, which killed 11 people and polluted parts of the Gulf of Mexico. According to reports, BP will agree to pay a fine as high as $5 billion, the largest criminal penalty in US history, and a number of BP staff may also face arrest and manslaughter charges.