Great News! "Gulf Victims Suing BP Disaster's Compensation Czar" --known as Feinberg "The Fixer"
(Around Wall Street he was referred to as "Feinberg the Fixer" for his handling of compensation cases that always profited the Corporation and not the person/group who won the lawsuit. Who knows if it will go anywhere because he is so powerful and well connected but that he is even challenged is at least its a start.)
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"Gulf Victims Suing BP Disaster's Compensation Czar"
Monday, 20 April 2015 00:00
Shortly after BP's oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico began on April 20, 2010, one of the most politically well-connected attorneys in the United States was appointed to administer the $20 billion fund to, in theory, pay compensation to those harmed by BP's catastrophe.
President Obama and BP's chairman, Carl-Henric Svanberg, agreed that attorney Kenneth Feinberg should head the fund. Feinberg would later be chosen, also by Obama, to oversee the compensation of the top executives of the banks that were bailed out with US tax dollars in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.
He has, almost needless to say, been accused of being a fox guarding a chicken house.
Feinberg's firm was paid $1.25 million per month by BP - that we know of (Feinberg refused to disclose the full amount of his compensation and the details of his deal with BP) - to run the so-called Gulf Coast Claims Facility (GCCF).
In essence, BP paid Feinberg $1.25 million a month to limit their liability in the wake of the single largest marine oil disaster in US history.
Outrage against Feinberg escalated enough, that by December 2010, the Center for Justice and Democracy sent a letter to BP CEO Bob Dudley expressing concern over "serious new issues raised about the lack of transparency and potential conflicts of interest related to the administration of the Gulf Coast Claims Facility," and pointed out the obvious conflict of interest:
Countless numbers of people along the Gulf Coast with claims against BP became increasingly enraged in their accusations that Feinberg was little more than a BP shill, and demanded that Feinberg stop claiming he was on their side, and not BP's.
Shortly thereafter, in January 2011, the federal judge presiding over BP's oil disaster litigation ruled that Feinberg was not independent of BP and could no longer claim he was, as Feinberg had been promising victims that he was their lawyer and did not answer to BP.
And now he is being sued by people he claimed to have represented against BP.
"In the cases such as BP, Feinberg should be exposed for what he is, the defendant's attorney protecting them at all costs to the detriment of the claimants," Maurie Salvesen, who is suing Feinberg's firm, told Truthout.
More at:
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/30305-gulf-victims-suing-bp-disaster-s-compensation-czar
= new reply since forum marked as read
Thanks for reading...I wasn't sure anyone would remember BP and what went on there.
