by Justin Lankes
23. December 2010 19:29
BP committed $20 billion to set up the Gulf Coast Claims Facility after talks with the Obama administration. The fund expires in 2013. It pays claims for economic losses from the oil that poured into the Gulf for three months after the April 20 explosion of BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig off Louisiana.
About 2,500 claims appeared fraudulent. Fifty of those have been referred to the Justice Department for criminal investigation. Hundreds more may follow.
Lack of documentation isn’t criminal by itself, Feinberg said. He said 5,000 claims from Plaquemines Parish in Louisiana —each using identical language claiming inability to fish for food because of the spill and each lacking critical documentation — were rejected.
“That’s not fraud, that’s just a denied claim,” Feinberg said. “That’s just trying to game the system.”
Read the entire report at The Stuart Smith Blog
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