Mississippi Files Suit Against Oil Spill Fund

Remember 2010's Gulf oil spill? The State of Mississippi hasn't forgotten.

The clean-up from the collapse of BP's Deepwater Horizon platform goes on, though the claims process appears to have slowed a bit. At least that's the view of Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood.

Hood has filed a petition with the Court to force the Gulf Coast Claims Facility (GCCF) and its administrator, Kenneth R. Feinberg to obey a subpoena pertaining to certain documents relevant to an investigation of the BP claims process.

Promises, promises

“Mr. Feinberg and the GCCF have continually made promises of compliance, but have failed to fully provide necessary information despite our repeated requests and reasonable efforts to resolve the issues,” Hood said. “All they have managed to do is delay, deny, deceive and dissemble.”

The Attorney General’s Petition, filed in Hinds County Chancery Court Tuesday, asks the GCCF and Feinberg to respond to the subpoena that was served in February. 

The petition says that the Attorney General has reason to believe that the GCCF and Feinberg may have violated or may be violating the Consumer Protection Act, and that he needs the documents requested in the subpoena to make this determination. 

“We hope that by asking a court to open up the GCCF claims process for review, we will be able to ensure that victims of last year’s oil spill are being adequately and fairly compensated for their losses,” said Hood.

Necessary and appropriate clean-up costs

When the oil rig collapsed and began spewing millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf in April 2010, BP vowed to pay all "necessary and appropriate" clean-up costs. The promise came in a May 2010 meeting with Hood and four other Attorneys General from Gulf Coast states.

In January, Hood asked  the federal judge handling the BP multi-district litigation to take control of the Gulf Coast Claims Facility (GCCF) claims process.