Tag Archives: BP

By JOE NOCERA

Published: July 8, 2013

You can actually pinpoint the moment when the oil company BP began to get hosed in Louisiana: March 2012.

By then, BP had paid out around $6.3 billion to some 220,000 people and businesses in the Gulf Coast region for damages suffered as a result of the 2010 oil spill. The money was distributed by Kenneth Feinberg, who had parceled out the 9/11 fund, and subsequently managed other victim compensation schemes.

In return for the payouts, however, Feinberg had insisted that the victims sign documents agreeing not to sue BP — a main goal for the company, which was hoping to avoid the kind of drawn-out litigation that went on after the 1989 Exxon-Valdez spill. He had also insisted that the claims be for real, documented harm. Believe it or not, Feinberg spent more time turning down bogus claims than he did approving payments to victims.

It almost goes without saying that the Louisiana plaintiffs’ bar found such a scheme offensive. No litigation, after all, meant no lawyers’ fees. Plus, the idea that you could have this giant company, so ripe for the plucking … and then not pluck?

Read more:  http://www.nytimes.com/