Paul L. Bloom, 70, an Energy Department lawyer who led a Carter administration effort that recovered billions of dollars from major oil companies that had overcharged their customers, died Oct. 9 of pancreatic cancer in Rockville, Md. He lived in Chevy Chase, Md.

After working as a natural resources lawyer in New Mexico, Bloom was named a special counsel for compliance at the newly created Department of Energy in late 1977. His quixotic task was to go after Big Oil to seek restitution for violations of federal regulatory laws.

Described in a 1980 National Journal article as "an ambling and amiable man with an impish sense of humor," Bloom liked to pass himself off as a country lawyer unaccustomed to the ways of Washington. But his staff of 450 lawyers and accountants quickly set out to examine the records of the nation's 34 largest oil companies.

"We have 65 people at the Exxon site every day," Bloom told the Washington Post in 1978, "and they are poring over microfilm machines, practically going blind."

The wide-ranging investigation enraged the oil business, prompting a Conoco spokesman to complain that Bloom's office was "regularly flooding the news media with releases based on unsubstantiated charges and incorrect assumptions designed to demoralize the petroleum industry and mislead the public."

The business magazine Fortune saw him as "a bear of a cop" whose "tactic seems to be to allege the largest violations he can possibly claim while keeping a straight face."

Battling resistance from the oil industry, Bloom concluded that after new regulations had gone into effect in the 1970s, the petroleum firms had defrauded their customers and the public of about $11 billion. Under the threat of criminal prosecution, he negotiated settlements with the companies, which ultimately paid back about $6 billion over the next decade.

Dr. Donald Baim, 60, a renowned cardiologist and medical device executive, died Friday in Natick, Mass., following surgery to remove diseased tissue caused by adrenal cancer, a rare form of the disease that attacks the adrenal glands.

Baim, a former Harvard Medical School professor, most recently served as chief medical officer for Boston Scientific Corp., a leading manufacturer of pacemakers, defibrillators and other implants. He joined the company in 2006. Boston Scientific Chief Executive Ray Elliot called Baim a pioneer in the development of interventional cardiology.

Nick Counter, 69 a longtime negotiator for Hollywood producers who led the studios through two grueling writers' strikes last year and in 1988, died Friday in Los Angeles.

NEWS SERVICES