I have no inside knowledge of this case- from what I have read when this incident happened no one on the scene or on the area seemed to think anything had been done wrong or illegal. There were supervisors in the area and yet nothing was said until later when the incident blew up, then many turned on these two BP.
My thinking is if they violated laws or procedures then it should have been wrong in the beginning. If it was not wrong in the beginning and only later when the heat was on did their actions become problems then to me it seems they were made scapegoats to keep Mexico happy.
Or, they broke the law and deseve to be punished. Pretty simple.