More Money for Victims of BP Oil Spill

The major Gulf of Mexico oil spill may be history today, but its effects are still taking a toll on the revenue of seafood business in that area. As a result, shrimpers and crabbers will receive substantial compensation meant to make them forget, at least to a certain extent, the devastating incident ever happened.

Kenneth Feinberg is in charge of the payments. He says he will make sure the victims of the BP oil spill will get four times more than they said they had lost. This means the fishermen and companies affected by the spill will be offered twice more money than previously anticipated, The Huffington Post reports.

Despite the fact that the Gulf Coast Claims Facility, directed by Feinberg, will boost the profit of several owners, it states that the spill recorded last year had no real effects on the marine population.

The decreased numbers reported by victims are a natural result of the questionable "marketability" of seafood coming from that particular area. Moreover, Feinberg claims that the stock were not biologically damaged in or after the incident.

Furthermore, he seems to be aware of "the ongoing uncertainty regarding the state of the commercial harvesting of shrimp and crabs in the Gulf and the uncertainty of any ongoing impact from the spill."

The bad news for some of the players on the market is that generous settlement packages are not randomly distributed. Feinberg said the companies would have to meet strict standards to get the expected amount of money.

Even if the offer is quite substantial, some of the victims are still keen on dragging BP to court while still accepting interim claims payments, anticipated to end in 2013. Feinberg's formula managed to satisfy 4,000 enterprises and individuals, but thousands others will file lawsuits.

All in all, Feinberg notes that $6 billion (€4.46 billion) went to the victims of the oil spill so far. Even so, there are things money could never buy, like the lives of the 11 workers who died last year in April, in the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig.