Feinberg backs BP bid to overturn settlement.
Kenneth Feinberg, who worked for BP in the Gulf oil spill while claiming to be independent, is trading again on his reputation as a modern day Edward the Confessor. He has urged the Supreme Court to grant cert in BP’s attack on the deal it negotiated but now regrets in part.

His amicus brief declares “Amicus Kenneth R. Feinberg was selected by Executive Branch officials to help design, implement, and administer two successful alternatives to the conventional tort litigation system.” “Selected by Executive Branch officials’ is cagey. True for the 9/11 Fund, not for the BP spill. He was “selected” by BP and presented at a June 2010 White House press conference to spread pacifying oil on the troubled waters of public opinion as the Gulf region reeled from the still uncontained spill.

In an incidental irony BP is trying to remove Patrick Juneau as court-appointed settlement administrator. They claim not to have known Juneau had represented Louisiana in dealing with the Feinberg-administered “Gulf Coast Claims Facility”. Feinberg, of course, knew, so in my view his principals are chargeable with that knowledge. MDL judge Carl Barbier ruled that Feinberg was BP’s agent. – gwc