Administering Fund, a Master Mediator

[babylonsister]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/17/us/17feinberg.html?src=mv

Administering Fund, a Master Mediator
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
Published: June 16, 2010


WASHINGTON — Kenneth R. Feinberg bristled when reporters dubbed him the compensation czar for his Treasury Department job monitoring executive pay at companies that received government bailouts. The term, he lamented to ABC News last year, “makes it sound like I’m going to issue some imperial decree.”

Mr. Feinberg, named Wednesday by President Obama as the independent administrator of a $20 billion fund set up by BP to compensate victims of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, may not have the powers of a king. But he does seem to specialize in Solomon-like decisions.

Over the course of his long career as a mediator, he has helped settle a variety of thorny disputes, including a class-action suit by Vietnam veterans protesting the use of the chemical defoliant Agent Orange, and a determination of the fair market value of the Zapruder film of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

At the Treasury Department, he has repeatedly slashed the pay of Wall Street and auto company executives, confronting outraged citizens and bankers alike.

“He has an enormously thick skin,” said his law partner, Michael Rozen.

snip//

Mr. Obama said Wednesday that the fund “does not supersede” the rights of individuals and states to sue. Experts say Mr. Feinberg’s biggest challenge will be to persuade the countless claimants — from shrimp processors to fishermen, hotel owners to restaurateurs — to settle claims through the escrow fund rather than sue.

John C. Coffee Jr., a professor at Columbia Law School who has known Mr. Feinberg for years, said persuasion was Mr. Feinberg’s real specialty.

“Feinberg can get both sides to realize that it’s better to settle and be unhappy than to go to trial and face disaster,” he said. “And that’s the most important skill of all.”

[Jennicut]

1. He presided over giving out money to the families of 9/11 victims as well.

Right man for the job, in my opinion. Got a lot of praise from many families.

[vaberella]

2. Some on DU were have already marked him as a corporate goon.

Ugh...this site sometimes.

[Jennicut]

3. He is not, he is a mediator who must not pick sides.

He worked for Ted Kennedy of all people as chief of staff!

[vaberella]

4. Yeah I know. DU irks me. n/t

[Clio the Leo]

5. where did the 9/11 money come from? anyone remember?

Was the money set aside by Congress? .... I'm guessing al qaeda didn't pay for it. :)