BP Escrow Fund Agreement: Obama Meets With BP Chairman and CEO

by NowPublic Staff | June 16, 2010 at 08:33 am

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$20 Billion BP Escrow Fund Established: Kenneth Fineburg, 9/11 Compensation Commissioner Named To Administer Fund

President Obama has confirmed that BP has agreed to set up a $20 Billion escrow account for the victims and the people impacted from the Gulf Oil Spill.

Obama said the BP escrow fund will be run independently of BP and the Federal Government by an independent commissioner, Kenneth Feinberg.

Obama recounted a private conversation he had with BP chairman, Carl Henri Svanberg.

"This is not just a matter of dollars and cents. Lot of these folks don't have a cushion, they were coming off Katrina and the worst economy since the great depression."

Earlier Report: BP Escrow Fund Report

BP has apparently agreed to the establishment of a $20 billion escrow fund after BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg and BP CEO Tony Hayward met with President Obama in the White House, according to CNN and the New York Times.

Carl-Henric Svanberg, Tony Hayward and other BP officials met with President Obama Wednesday morning.

The New York Times is reporting that the fund will be administered by a independent commissioner, the same man who administered the 9/11 victims compensation fund Kenneth Fineberg.

Mr. Feinberg currently serves as the administration’s “pay czar,” the overseer of executive compensation at the nation’s biggest financial institutions, a role created in response to public outrage at big bank bonuses in the wake of the 2008 and 2009 financial bailouts.

Earlier on Wednesday David Axelrod Obama's senior advisor appeared on NBC's Today Show.

“If they owe more money, they’ll have to pay more money. This is not a get-out-of-the-situation-free card.”

“We believe we have the authority to compel” creation of a compensation fund administered by a third party, Axelrod said on NBC.

Meanwhile oil continues to spill in the Gulf of Mexico though there has been some success in collecting it but scientists now say the amount of oil that is leaking in the Gulf is far getter than previously thought.