Defamation

Mississippi's AG Jim Hood is suing Ken Feinberg's Gulf Coast Claims Facility over what Hood believes is a lack of transparency in the claims process.

Jim Hood said Tuesday that he has tried to negotiate with the fund's administrator, Washington lawyer Kenneth Feinberg. He says he's seeking to make the process more transparent so people will know whether Feinberg is looking out for the best interests of oil spill victims or BP.

Hood filed the lawsuit Tuesday in Hinds County Chancery Court.

Feinberg said Tuesday in a phone interview with The Associated Press that, "Our lawyers will respond in the ordinary course." He had no other immediate comment.

Hood has previously said he believes Feinberg's operation is intentionally delaying and denying legitimate claims, an allegation Feinberg has denied. Others have also criticized the size and pace of payments and a perceived lack of transparency.

Feinberg has said Hood could undermine the claims process by urging a court to intervene and by making allegations that border on defamation.

"Defamtaion" is Feinberg's go-to complaint against anything approaching judicial oversight.

Attorneys general of four Gulf Coast states this month asked US District Judge Carl Barbier to conduct an inquiry into the claims process and the GCCF. They assert that Feinberg is using “economic duress to manipulate financially desperate claimants’’ into signing off on insufficient settlements in the GCCF’s Quick Pay option, which gives $5,000 to individuals and $25,000 to businesses in return for waiving the right to sue or seek further money from the claims facility.

Feinberg attacked the appeal to Barbier in emphatic language, saying that it verges on “defamation.” “The court does not have the power under the Oil Pollution Act to impose upon the GCCF the monitoring sought by the attorney general,’’ said Feinberg lawyer David Pitofsky in a court filing this week. Such a step would “chill the ability of GCCF personnel to work expeditiously without fear of running afoul of an independent auditor and a court-imposed evidentiary hearing.”

I don't yet know enough details to speak to Feinberg's claims regarding what the Oil Pollution Act might disallow. But "defamation" is a fairly dickish thing to scream back given the circumstances.