Oil claims: 6 months of payments per each request

[July 12, 2010]  WASHINGTON (AP) -- The man in charge of providing compensation for victims of the Gulf oil spill says he's ready to give those eligible a full six months' worth of emergency payments on a single request.

Ken Feinberg, who's administering the $20 billion fund established by BP, says that speeding up the claims process is part of the effort to help people feel an added degree of financial certainty.

Feinberg says that a payment based on six months of losses rather than month-by-month requests will cut back on the number of claims his office expects to receive.

Feinberg appeared Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union."

[Associated Press]

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