Exxon had choices, as did the stupid SOB who was captain of the tanker that made the mess, who should be serving time right now, if it were up to me, and most of that time would be spent helping to clean up the absolute disaster he helped cause.
I don't give a chit how conservative/liberal a person is, what Exxon is doing is WRONG...yes, they have the money and a battalion of corporate attorneys to explore every legal way possible to avoid doing the RIGHT thing, but ethically they suck, and I will continue not doing business with them, if at all possible.
What they needed to do in order to keep people like me from avoiding their product was simple...pay the money, admit they f'd up big time, take every possible step to ensure the public it won't happen again, and spend whatever necessary to repair as much of the damage as possible. Pretty damn simple to do the right thing, but they chose the low road instead. And then people wonder why there is a need for governmental oversight, which is certainly not perfect, but necessary.
Glutinous Pigs, like so many others in big business. There is no correlation between compensation and actual job worth in the majority of corporate executive pay, bonuses, and severance packages. Exxon is just one example.