With the fifth anniversary of the massive April 22, 2010, BP oil spill this month, many local businesses are unaware the deadline for filing damage loss claims was extended last December to June 8, 2015.
Meanwhile, as the New Orleans Times-Picayune editorialized March 18, “With hefty fines pending in federal court, the oil company badly wants the world to think that things are OK in the Gulf”. “Areas that were affected are recovering and data BP has collected and analyzed to date do not indicate a significant long-term impact to the population of any Gulf species,” Laura Folse, BP executive vice president for response and environmental restoration, said in a recent company’s report’s introduction.
“Not so fast,” the editorial continues, “BP’s declaration is premature and one-sided, according to the council of federal and state Natural Resource Damage Assessment trustees, Louisiana officials and environmentalists. In other words, just about everybody other than BP”.
“Citing scientific studies conducted by experts from around the Gulf, as well as this council, BP misinterprets and misapplies data while ignoring published literature that doesn’t support its claims and attempts to obscure our role as caretakers of the critical resources damaged by the spill”, the trustee council said in a statement released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The Deepwater Horizon Economic & Property Damages
Settlement was established to resolve claims by those affected by the BP oil spill of 2010, including businesses and residents located in the coastal areas of Sarasota, Manatee, Pinellas, Hillsborough, Charlotte, DeSoto, Lee and Collier Counties who experienced business economic loss, start-up business economic loss, failed business economic loss and/or individual economic loss. The $20 billion dollar compensation fund was designed to reimburse those who have suffered economic harm as a result of the BP oil spill.
Pinellas County Focus
Tampa attorney Tom Young, who has specialized in filing oil spill claims, provided the following data: Of the 6,521 Pinellas County claims currently filed, 760have been paid to-date for a total of $83,000,000, resulting in an average claim value of $109,000.
He told Paradise News, “According to the latest U.S. Census figures, there are approximately 99,000business and non-profit entities in Pinellas County. Through our experience in evaluating eligibility for over 2,000 companies and non-profits, we estimate that one-fourth to one-third of all Pinellas County businesses suffered a measurable economic loss as a result of the Deepwater Horizon Disaster and are eligible for compensation under this program.
“Conservatively, that suggests that approximately 25,000 Pinellasentities should file claims, yet to-date only 6,521have done so, or less than 30%.”
“The take away is that only a small fraction of those eligible to receive compensation have filed claims. To be clear, only companies impacted by the spill will be compensated. However, without undergoing a forensic accounting analysis, it would be almost impossible to determine what effect the spill had ona local entity’s economic performance. BP is relying on that ignorance to suppress participation. That said, if the analysis is performed correctly, a significant percentage of entities satisfy the causation test.”
Claim Filing Advice
Walter “Wally” Copeland, St. Pete Beach-based CPA and active member of the Tampa Bay Beaches Chamber of Commerce, emphasizes for Paradise News, “The BP Claim action applies to any company that is generally located along the Gulf Coast with certain exceptions. Generally, those exceptions include financial institutions like insurance, banking and securities”.
“Businesses eligible to file a claim include Retail Establishments, Medical & Dental Practices, Real Estate Agents, Agencies and Brokers, Building or Construction Businesses, Restaurants, Hotels, Marinas, Veterinary Practices, Golf Courses, Engineering Firms or Charter Businesses.
“There are new formulas and qualifications for calculating claims dependent on the location of the company, the type of business and the treatment of various costs of the business. Because of these various formulas to make the computation, there is no rule of thumb to initially estimate the claim until all the records are assembled to make the claim.”
Wally is offering Chamber members and other Pinellas County businesses a no-cost review to make the process easy to quickly determine if they can still take advantage of a BP Oil Spill claim. That determination is based on the company submitting the monthly gross revenues for the 60 months from January 2007 through December 2011. (See Claim Filing Q&A in accompanying story.) He can be reached at 813-240-1745 or by email to wally.c.copeland@gmail.com.
All claims by individuals and businesses are now being processed by the Gulf Coast Claims Facility,(GCCF) administered by Ken Feinberg. To file a new claim or check on the status of an existing claim, call (800) 916-4893, visit the Gulf Coast Claims website or e-mail info@gccf-claims.com. Pinellas businesses have a local claims office at 2551 Drew St., Clearwater. PN
[Editor’s Note: Special thanks to Tom Young and Wally Copeland for their contributions to the article.] [Steve Traiman is President of Creative Copy by Steve Traiman in St. Pete Beach, offering freelance business writing services. He can be reached via his NEW email at traimancreativecopy@gmail.com .]