Following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, BP established a $20 billion trust fund to settle claims related to the incident. This agreement came on June 16, 2010 following a meeting with President Obama. Executives agreed to put $3 billion into the fund during the third quarter of 2010, followed by $2 billion during the fourth quarter, followed by $1.25 billion per quarter until the fund reached the maximum of $20 billion. Until then, BP posted its assets as bond.
"We are taking full responsibility for the spill and we will clean it up and where people can present legitimate claims for damages we will honor them " - BP CEO Tony Hayward.
On August 2010, claims began to become accepted; they were handled by the Gulf Coast Claims Facility. By the time it was handed over to Attorney Kenneth Feinberg, more than $375 million had already been paid with nearly 19,000 claims submitted within the first week. More than a 1,000 of those initial claims were compensated, while the rest were claimed to be missing necessary paperwork.
Since its inception, more than one million claims have been processed and more than $6 billion has been paid out; almost all of compensated claimants have been in the Gulf States. Since then, the settlement of claims has been transitioned over to a court supervised settlement program that is responsible for $9.6 billion of the total fund. Claims were anticipated to be accepted through April 2014. As of 2013, it is believed that the total payments from the fund have amounted to roughly $19.7 billion.
Once the trust fund has been depleted, all future claims will come from BP's future profits.
If you have been negatively impacted by the BP oil spill-regardless of whether you are an individual, resident, or business-you deserve to have high-quality lawyer. There are tough questions that you need to address, which we at Arnold & Itkin can help you with. For example, we help determine whether your case is more suited for filing a claim under the trust fund, if it would be better to file a lawsuit, or even if there is an existing class action that you could join. Due to the complexity of BP oil spill claims, it is crucial that you talk to an attorney. At Arnold & Itkin, we have had success with these claims, and we are here to help you.
Have more questions about the BP Compensation Fund? Contact Arnold & Itkin today!
Arnold & Itkin represented nearly a third of the crewmembers injured in the Deepwater Horizon explosion.
Because maritime law is so complex and so complicated, it is crucial that you work with an attorney who has an in-depth understanding of how it works and who has proven themselves in similar cases before.
