BP Oil Spill Claimants Need to Prove Losses with Documentation

Posted in Alabama Maritime News,BP British Petroleum,Deepwater Horizon,Environment,Florida Maritime News,Government,Gulf Coast,Louisiana Maritime News,Mississippi Maritime News,Texas Maritime News,World Maritime News on March 11, 2011

NEW ORLEANS, La. – In order to ward off fraud and justify payments for thousands of Gulf oil spill claimants, Kenneth Feinberg, the administrator of BP’s compensation fund, is requiring proof of losses in order to process claims.

Feinberg has been criticized for delays in handling some claims but in thousands of cases claimants have not provided enough documentation to prove losses.

In a recent editorial NOLA.com reports:

Mr. Feinberg said recently that more than 105,000 claimants have not filed enough evidence of their 2010 losses, with many lacking any documentation from November and December. He said that makes it impossible for his staff to send those claimants final settlement offers or interim payments.

Claimants cannot expect payment from the Gulf Coast Claims Facility without providing proof of losses, and they need to work diligently to move the process along. On the other hand, the GCCF needs to make sure that individual claimants know what documentation they need to verify losses.

Mr. Feinberg has paid out $3.5 billion, including final payments to more than 95,000 of the 496,000 claimants.

Getting records together for the claims process is not always easy. Some individuals, for example, have encountered delays getting their W-2 or 1099 tax forms from their employers. Businesses face even tougher documentation requirements. The GCCF has asked about 30,000 companies to file three years of tax returns, all employee W-2 and 1099 forms, and other more specific data for fishing businesses to prove volumes of activity previous to the spill.

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