There have been two major allegations that I received regarding, at least some, of the PSC attorneys using their position to gain an unfair advantage in the claims process and these two items I requested would provide very basic information that could confirm or deny the first of the two allegations. This particular allegation is that, at least some, of the PSC lawyers manipulated the DHECC claims process to have their clients' claims processed ahead of other claimants.This is important for a number of reasons, the most obvious being that the amount of money to be paid out through the claims process is finite... although it can always be lowered.
So far, none of my sources is willing to go on the record to back up these allegations but I have been provided with some information that leads me to believe there is fire underneath the smoke.
I was told by three separate sources that a single PSC law firm received over $24 million out of $30 million in client claims processed in the first round of payments from the DHECC upon opening in June of 2012.
As it turns out the number is closer to 27 million but I'll get to that in a minute.
If true, this is a clear violation of the claims process. When the DHECC was being structured by Judge Barbier during the transition period from Feinberg's Gulf Coast Claims Facility (GCCF), in item #10 of this order on March 8, 2012 he mandated that all claims should be paid in the order they are received.
When this settlement process started with Feinberg and the GCCF, there was a number established by both parties on what the inevitable payout should be....20 billion. When the process was shifted from the GCCF to the DHECC, I'm told there was literally an envelope delivered to one of the PSC law firms with a new number on it. That number was the new ceiling and I believe it would coincide with the original 20 billion dollar ceiling established at the origin of the GCCF. So subtract what the GCCF paid out, 6.2 billion, and I think you can get a pretty good idea at the number in that envelope handed to the PSC lawyers.
I believe...I don't know...that the claims that are currently queued in the DHECC office far surpass the ceiling established by BP. I believe the PSC lawyers knew full well the ceiling would collapse and if their claims were purposely pushed to the top, ahead of the natural order of the claims received in the office, well...you see my point.
This breach of protocol is compounded by the fact that this group of lawyers, the PSC, were established to represent all claimants in the BP settlement process, not just their private clients. So as a claimant, I shouldn't even need to hire a personal lawyer as the PSC attorneys were appointed by a federal court as multi-district litigators to serve me in the claims process.
Anyway, there's a bunch more and, I suppose, there's a tendency to say "welp, lawyers gonna lawyer" or some such but there's obviously damage being done.
And, of course, it's a PR gift to BP which they're already running with.
Former FBI Director Louis Freeh will head an ethics probe of the organization that’s processing and paying oil-spill damage claims for BP Plc. (BP/)Hope Freeh isn't too busy finishing his... whatever that was Tom Benson wanted him to do.. in order to figure this out. Unless BP just wants to make sure the claims process and the trial is thoroughly smeared, in which case, mission accomplished.
Freeh, a former federal judge, will conduct an external investigation to supplement an internal probe already under way of a staff attorney at the Deepwater Horizon Court Supervised Settlement Program. The attorney was suspended after being accused of accepting fees from law firms while processing their clients’ claims from the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
The "Vessels of Opportunity" program was a deal that BP set up to hire vessel owners, mostly fishing boats, to respond to the spill. They signed contracts that clearly set forth what they would pay for what services the vessels would provide. The vessels provided the services, but on the day the well was capped, BP suspended all their payments under the VOO program, without telling the vessel owners, who continued to perform under the contracts. So the vessel owners were cheated of both pre- and post-capping contractual payments.
ReplyDeleteSo these were contractual claims that were based on obvious breaches of explicit contracts by BP, and the damages could be determined by simple reference to the contracts themselves, without any complicated scientific or accounting evidence. They are, by far, the easiest claims to resolve in this entire litigation. So the fact that they were the overwhelming majority of claims resolved earliest tells us nothing about the process at all, other than that it works rationally.
And yes, most of those claimants signed up with the PSC lawyers. By the time they realized they were getting screwed, it was pretty clear to them who was running the litigation, so signing up with those lawyers made perfect sense.
And no, I'm not significantly involved in the BP litigation.
And yes, attacking the court and the PSC over this is carrying water for BP.