Posted on 01/10/2012 6:35:28 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Today, I’m going to say some nice things about BP and some not so nice things about the lawyers who are suing BP. Please don’t spill your coffee.
As horrific as the Deepwater Horizon accident was in April 2010 — killing 11 rig employees, while pouring millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico — BP has performed quite admirably in its aftermath. It has spared no expense in cleaning up the oil. It has set aside $1 billion to restore the environment and coastal ecosystem. It underwrote an advertising campaign to lure tourists back to the Gulf Coast. Today, less than two years after the spill, the beaches are sparkling, most fishermen are working and many of the hotels are full.
At the urging of President Obama, BP also agreed to set up a $20 billion fund to compensate anyone who could show that they’d been economically harmed by the accident. Ken Feinberg, the former administrator of the Sept. 11 victim compensation fund, was put in charge of the Gulf Coast Claims Facility, as it was named. Feinberg has since paid out $6.3 billion to nearly 200,000 claimants. Daniel Becnel, a lawyer who has settled thousands of claims, says that his clients often receive more money from Feinberg than they would have if they had gone to court. “You couldn’t have done a better job than Feinberg did,” says Becnel.
To put it another way, the Gulf Coast Claims Facility has been a remarkably effective alternative to the cumbersome way damages are usually meted out after a corporate accident: through the tort system.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
“At the urging of President Obama” is that what they call it these days?
BP and Mother Nature have done a fantastic job, and created quite a few also.
BP had to set aside a billion dollars to clean up the coastline because baraq sat on his hands for 50 days to make sure the oil reached the shore.
Guess the author forgot about that part of the event.
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