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GCCF has only paid 1 "Final Payment":
$10 million to a BP partner

With 91,000 people and businesses awaiting payments, the GCCF has made only one "Final Payment," and that was a $10 million check that went to a BP business partner, according to Associated Press (AP) reports.

BP refuses to name the business that received the $10 million payment, but a BP spokesperson admitted that BP "lobbied" for the payment. According to the AP report, BP spokeswoman Hejdi Feick, in an e-mail to AP, called it "a unique situation in which an existing BP business partner and BP submitted a view on a specific claim."

The fund's administrator, Kenneth Feinberg, told AP that the Gulf Coast Claims Facility never reviewed the $10 million claim for merit. He said BP struck an outside deal with the business and told the fund to make the payment, according to the story.

"At the request of the parties, the settlement reached between BP and the other party was paid out of the GCCF fund," Feinberg told the AP. "It was a private settlement and we paid it, but we were not privy to the settlement negotiations between BP and that party."

Reported by BRIAN SKOLOFF, Associated Press

The law firm Kenneth Feinberg runs has been receiving $850,000 a month from BP for its work, according to AP news reports. The law firm has offices in New York City and Washington, D.C.

The lawyers at the Pensacola-based law firm of Aylstock, Witkin, Kreis & Overholtz have been fighting to secure payments for numerous clients who have been harmed by the BP oil spill.

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