BP Should Provide Details of $20 Billion Gulf Oil Spill Fund, Lawyers Say
By Laurel Brubaker Calkins and Margaret Cronin Fisk - Jul 21, 2010
BP Plc should be required to specify in writing how it will fund, protect and replenish a $20 billion fund dedicated to paying cleanup and damage claims from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, lawyers suing the company said.
BP should produce “any and all trust documents, escrow agreements or other formation documents or agreements to which BP is a signatory’’ relating to two funds BP agreed to establish, the lawyers said in a motion filed with U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier in New Orleans. Barbier is presiding over more than 30 spill-damage cases.
One fund is the $20 billion spill-claims escrow account administered by New York lawyer Kenneth Feinberg, and the other is a $100 million companion fund to aid oilfield workers hurt by a U.S. offshore drilling moratorium imposed after the spill.
“No one, it seems, has ever seen a document signed off on by BP,’’ Steve Herman, an interim liaison lawyer Barbier appointed to coordinate claims, said in a statement released by his office today. “What, specifically, has BP committed to do, and what, specifically, has BP given Mr. Feinberg the authority to agree to do on behalf of BP?’’
BP faces more than 300 lawsuits, including proposed class actions, claiming potentially billions of dollars in damages to commercial fishing interests, tourist businesses and property owners harmed by the drifting oil. The spill was caused by the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, leased by BP, off the Louisiana coast in April.
The case is In Re: Deepwater Horizon, 2:10-cv-01156, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Louisiana (New Orleans).
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