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Showing posts with label Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Show all posts

Thursday, December 26, 2013

Federal judge rules proof of direct causation unnecessary for BP oil spill claimants

Today's post is shared from jurist.org

[JURIST] US District Judge Carl Barbier for the US District Court Eastern District of Louisiana [official website] ruled [order, PDF] on Tuesday that BP [corporate website] could not require businesses to provide proof their economic losses were directly caused by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill [JURIST news archive] under the terms of their prior settlement agreement. Under the $9.2 billion settlement, BP had agreed that businesses in certain geographical regions were presumed to have economic losses from the oil spill if those losses followed a specific pattern. BP had challenged those terms [Bloomberg report], arguing that businesses could only recover if their damages directly linked to the spill, and stating that spill payments had been wrongly inflated through fake claims and poorly calculated economic losses. Barbier wrote that "the delays that would result from having to engage in a claim-by-claim analysis of whether each claim is 'fairly traceable' to the oil spill...are the very delays that the Settlement, indeed all class settlements, are intended to avoid" and that not only was the framework BP previously agreed "an efficient and 'economically appropriate' method of determining causation," but that a showing of direct causation "would bring the claims administration process to a virtual standstill." BP has indicated that it will appeal the ruling. However, Barbier did side with BP on one...

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Saturday, December 14, 2013

EPA plans to sharply reduce inspections

Reallocating resources for enforcement, the US EPA will be targeting large industry for polluters. On the other side of the coin, the employees and potentially exposed bystanders, in smaller industries will  potentially suffer occupational exposures. The balancing act could be eliminated by merely increasing funding to the EPA for its enforcement effort. Today's post is shared from the LATimes.org  .

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency plans to substantially reduce inspections and civil enforcement cases against industry over the next five years, arguing that focusing on the biggest polluters would be the most effective way to clean up air and water.

refinery

In a draft strategic plan, the EPA proposes to cut federal inspections by one-third from the 20,000 inspections it conducted in the last fiscal year, ended Sept. 30.

Moreover, it plans to initiate about 2,320 civil enforcement cases a year, compared with the 3,000 cases initiated last fiscal year, a 23% reduction.

The EPA said the shift for fiscal years 2014 to 2018 is not a retreat from enforcement but a more effective allocation of resources.

Sunday, October 6, 2013

Claims administrator ordered to halt oil spill claims payments

Today's post was shared by Legal Newsline and comes from legalnewsline.com


U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier has ordered claims administrator Patrick Juneau to immediately stop business-related loss payments connected to the 2010 BP oil spill.
Barbier
Barbier

Barbier, who is overseeing the case at the Eastern District of Louisiana, made the ruling Friday — a day after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit sided with BP concerning the way funds were being paid out under the Court Supervised Settlement Program under the leadership of Juneau.

BP claims Juneau misinterpreted the settlement agreement and allowed businesses that could show little or no economic damages to receive payments. While business claims will be suspended for the time being, all other claims will be allowed to be processed.

“This order is issued only as an immediate and interim measure until the Court is able to confer with and receive input from the parties in order to confect an appropriate ‘narrowly tailored’ preliminary injunction order as instructed by the Fifth Circuit,” Barbier wrote.

Both BP and the plaintiffs’ steering committee also have been ordered to submit a proposal on how damages for businesses should be handled to eliminate the potential for false claims.
The ruling comes after multiple denials by Barbier to revisit the settlement program at BP’s request.
BP, the plaintiffs’ steering committee and Juneau will meet in a status conference on Oct. 11 to go over potential new...
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Thursday, September 19, 2013

BP claims investigation finds attorney took $40K kickback in exchange for expediting nearly $8M claim

Today's post was shared by Legal Newsline and comes from legalnewsline.com



The results of a two-month long investigation into allegations of fraud within the 2010 oil spill settlement program have revealed an alleged kickback scheme enacted by a claims attorney.

Lionel Sutton, a former senior attorney within the Court Supervised Settlement Program, or CSSP, is accused of taking a $40,000 referral fee from the Andry Lerner Law Firm and attempted to more quickly resolve a claim worth $7,908,460.

The New Orleans firm, which bills itself as “BP Oil Spill Lawyers” on the firm website, is accused of using Sutton’s position within the claims center to make the acceptance of the claim in question faster and easier.
Freeh
Freeh
The investigation was headed by ex-FBI Director Louis B. Freeh who was asked to be a special investigator on the case by U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier in early July after claims administrator Patrick Juneau revealed that an internal investigation into the CSSP showed potential conflicts of interest.

The $7.9 million claim in question was originally a case handled by Christine Reitano, Sutton’s wife, who shortly after receiving the case became an employee of the claims administration office. Subsequent to her appointment Sutton is alleged to have referred the case to the Andry Lerner Law Firm for a referral fee to be paid to Crown LLC, a water reclamation company he owned and in which Andry Lerner partner Glen Lerner had invested $1 million.

Freeh stated in the report that...
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