$20B BP Fund Opens for Business

The well may be capped, but the legal fight over the oil spill is just beginning: The $20 billion compensation fund established to help victims of the oil spill opens on Monday. However, some are saying that the rules established under its head Kenneth Feinberg, who previously ran the 9/11 victims compensation fund and oversaw executive pay for bailed-out companies, are unfair, as anyone who claims an emergency payment after six months will have to forfeit their right to sue BP. "The goal here is to try and explain to eligible claimants: 'It is not in your interest to tie up yourself and the courts in years of uncertain protracted litigation when … there is a more efficient quick alternative,'” Feinberg explained on Sunday. Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum has called the decision “completely unacceptable.”