BP settlements slow to a trickle; Critics say system ‘shockingly inefficient’

On October 8, 2014, “The Louisiana Record” posted an article that brought to light statistics regarding the “shockingly inefficient“ management of the Deepwater Horizon Economic Oil Spill claims. The information included in the article can only be described as profoundly disturbing and is indicative of tremendous inefficiencies and stall tactics at all levels of the claims process on behalf of the Claims Administrator as well as BP.

Many Deepwater Horizon Economic Settlement Claimants are all too familiar with the near-stagnant progress of their properly & timely filed BP Oil Spill Claims. Even when a substantive update on a specific client’s economic claim is requested, all too often the Claims Administrator Liaisons, who are each assigned to assist a specific firm in the proper and efficient management of its claims, are forced to reply with a canned response. On multiple occasions, Arguello Law Firm has requested updates on specific claims only to be told that, “No further documentation or action is needed at this time to progress the claim; the claim is queued for review, and the time it will take to advance to an Initial Accountant Review is very much dependent on the volume of claims also awaiting this review. It is not at all uncommon at this time for claims to be awaiting Accountant Review since before July of this year, because of the volume of claims.”

The sad reality is that many pending claims have been awaiting an initial review by the Claims Administrator’s analysts and accountants for much longer than July 2014—some have been waiting patiently for well over a year or longer now. What’s worse is that plaintiffs’ lawyers across the Gulf Coast are essentially powerless to expedite the process for their claimants. In the meantime, the total amount of money BP is likely to pay out when all is said and done vastly decreases due to claimants becoming frustrated and giving up, which is likely BP’s intention. Additionally, the Claims Administrator’s office appears to have no meaningful motivation to move through these claims at a faster pace since the settlement program’s head administrator, Patrick Juneau, receives a salary of approximately $300,000 a month while the devastated victims of BP’s negligence wither away waiting for their justified payments that may still be a long way off.

For the entire month of September, “The Louisiana Record” reports that only 883 claimants were paid on their claims, which leaves approximately 131,000 people still awaiting resolution. It is unclear what exactly is causing these extreme and burdensome delays in a claims process that was purposefully designed by plaintiffs’ lawyers and BP alike to be “claimant friendly.” At the onset of the Deepwater Horizon Economic Settlement, the Claims Administrator frequently gave estimated time frames that it would take for a claim to reach review. These turned out to be wildly underestimated, and now the Claims Administrator no longer bothers to give any time frames whatsoever.

With the current snail’s pace at which claims are being processed and the sheer volume of claims left to resolve, it would take the Claims Administrator’s office over a decade to completely move through the back log of claims. When you combine these alarming facts with other troublesome issues, such as the delays caused by recently enacted Policy 495 for Business Economic Loss Claims and BP filing appeals on what seems to be essentially every award issued by the Claims Administrator for over $25,000, it becomes clear just how poorly this supposedly claimant friendly settlement program is being managed. The Claims Administrator and BP have failed miserably in their obligation to the victims of the disastrous BP Oil Spill. It would serve the Claims Administrator’s Office well to remember that while they are dragging their feet and racking up approximately $33,000 in administrative fees per claimant, the victims whose claims they are supposed to be efficiently processing grow worse off with each additional day they are required to wait for the proper resolution of their claims.

Source: The Lousiana Record