NEW YORK – According to a report released last week by former FBI director Louis Freeh, there may have been criminal fraud on the part of some lawyers who oversaw payments from the Deepwater Horizon settlement fund, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Freeh said the report’s findings shouldn’t prevent the fund, paid for by BP PLC, from continuing to make payments.

Lawyer Patrick Juneau, the court-appointed head of the claims process who was not implicated in any wrongdoing, said the problems cited in the report were isolated and that Freeh’s findings validated the work of the 2,700 people who process claim spills.

BP spokesperson Geoff Morell said evidence of conflicts of interest and misconduct detailed in the report “is shocking, but it simply underscores that neither BP nor the public has had any idea of what's really going on" within the claims process.

U.S. District Court Judge Carl Barbier appointed Freeh in July to investigate allegations of wrongdoing raised by BP. Last week, the judge said Freeh would now design, test and deploy new internal compliance procedures for the claims process.

To-date, BP has already paid out more than $3 billion into the settlement fund.