BP Plc is using the $20 billion fund run by Kenneth Feinberg to stall payment of interim damage claims and pressure “financially desperate” oil-spill victims into accepting quick, cheap settlements that block them from suing later on, Mississippi’s attorney general said.
Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood said he analyzed data from the website of Feinberg’s Gulf Coast Claims Facility and found that “virtually no interim claims are being processed.” More than 95 percent of requests for rapid, “seemingly very low” final settlements have been paid promptly, Hood said in papers filed today in federal court in New Orleans.
