Sunday, January 25, 2015

DHECC - Comment Bump, January 25, 2015

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "DHECC - would the real Pat Juneau please stand up?...": 

You asked what BP is up to or doing?

Delaying claims with bullshit arguments read below. 

And why are we missing the Dec monthly court report Pat? 

Don't want anyone to know you wiped out $795 million in offers but your court vendors got paid for doing the work?

Appeal Panel Decision 2014-723

BP has again appealed a BEL award to a realtor on the same grounds that have been asserted in a multiplicity of other appeals. In almost boilerplate fashion, BP asserts that as a cash accounting basis entity, Claimant reports spikes in commission income in certain months that should be matched at Step One of Policy 495 to reallocate it over the several months that to a near certainty it took in earnings activities to produce the revenue. It also again asserts that instead of using the AVM methodology chosen by the vendors to roughly match revenues and expenses, the vendors should have resorted to the use of the Professional Services methodology. It argues for a remand to perform further matching and alternatively proposes a much lower award, admitting in footnote that its math is based upon assumptions unavailable from the record. This record has been reviewed de novo. 

Sufficient matching was done by the vendors in the second step of Policy 495, by subjecting Claimant to the seven criteria denoted therein. This is all that is required. The vendors exercised their allowable discretion in choosing AVM over Professional Services as a methodology, the latter which does not include realtors as one of the enumerated entities that mandate its use. There is nothing different in this record from the facts and arguments addressed and denied in many other essentially identical appeals on this issue. As such, the award must be chosen and affirmed.

BP lost this appeal.


IN-HALE 

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

IN-HALE:

Any insight on what is holding BEL claims up now? Apart from frivolous appeals and now seeking discretionary review on every claim. Now that the Sup. Ct. upheld the settlement and the statute is running, why isn't processing ramping up.

I also hear the motion by the PSC regarding 495 is dead in the water.

Any thought on getting past Policy 70 to get an eligibility notice.

Thanks

Anonymous said...

First I’ll address Policy 70 v2

This one is comical and is the court vendor insurance policy to making sure they don’t loose out on any possible billable hour to BP. It also allows the claim determination to be delayed for another 2-3 months.

Policy 70 can be compared to the McGladrey open invoice to the court vendors. We haven’t seen any offers without the request for 4506 & 4506T although this violates the policy statements when challenged what document trigger the request the “response was none noted” (desirable in his discretion) to the court vendors it means all $$$$$$$$$$$.

II Policy Statement 70 v2 p.2.

Claimant only upon specific request by the Claims Administrator, as the Claims
Administrator determines to be necessary or desirable in his discretion.

So ask why would anyone work on reviewing and calculating a claim if they suspected the tax returns to be questionable.

Currently you will need to satisfy the court vendors, once it travels to the QA dept. if it passes they then issue Policy 70 request wait 2-3 months for the determination notice then BP appeals the claim tacking on another 2-3 months. This is the current standard operating procedure.

IN-HALE

Anonymous said...

The set up for Policy 495!

At first when the injunction was lifted they issued most claims that were below the threshold of $25k these can't be appealed by BP. A large spike in subsistence claims have more then doubled in payments over the last few months and the $2,500 coastal claims continue.

These have been used for pushing up the stats used in BS talking points, but they equal roughly 50% of all unique claimants paid to date.

I’m not aware of any claims that were negatively affected by Policy 495 that received an offer.

So we are awaiting oral arguments from Pinocchio on 495 the one who claims that policy 495 stats support little to no affect to the claim payments and that it should stay in place. (This would be a blatant lie moving revenue out of bench marks will affect the claim). On the surface it appears the stats are being manipulated once again just as they were prior to the Fairness Hearing.

So in closing the motion for consideration on policy 495 is holding up everything. This would add the third group of similar situated claimants receiving different treatments.

IN-HALE

Anonymous said...

Last week the settlement produced these 301 payments.

31 IEL
130 BEL valued at 9.9 million
1 Failed Business
49 Coastal Claims
139 Subsistence
4 Accepted the GCCF offer

Total pay out for the week 11.6 million U.S. Dollars

And produced these notices for 1,003 losing class members.

45 Eligible with No Payment
2 More Exclusion Denials
22 Causation Denials
239 Other Denials
695 Incomplete Denials

And once again the winners for the week are BP and the court vendors.

IN-HALE

Anonymous said...

Policy 70.v2
Another lesson on how the court vendors are so screwed up. I just received another request on Jan 26, 2014 that reads:

The Initial Notice of Request for Authorization requires that claimants provide both a properly completed Form(s) 4506-T and a properly completed Form 4506 covering all the years in which the claimant provided tax returns or tax information documentation. Because you provided a 2007 tax return, a Form 4506-T covering tax year 2007 is required. To avoid the IRS potentially rejecting the form(s) for alterations or illegibility, it is recommended that the form(s) is typed (except for your signature). Editable pre-filled Forms 4506-T and 4506 are available on the DWH website on the Sworn Written Statements and Authorizations page. Please provide the required form(s) as soon as possible to avoid potential delays.

Here’s the problem.

We didn’t submit 2007 tax returns.

We did signed the documents they sent us although we protested it because the form requested years from 2008-2011 when 2009, 2010 were the only years used in the calculated loss.

The 4506 & 4606 T forms were submitted in early Nov 2014 transcripts were requested and returned to the claim center on the same day at the end of Nov 2014

They then issued a delay notice: Seafood Supplemental Distribution Determination Notice (Delayed Eligibility) on Dec 24, 2014

So now they are asking for a form to be signed requesting tax transcripts for a year that’s not included in the calculations and by the way the individual was not a fisherman in 2007.

I can’t make this shit up so BP was billed $3,000 dollars for these communications and notices. My time was wasted and the client still hasn’t received his payment.

IN-HALE

Anonymous said...

IN-HALE:

So there is nothing being done to speed up claims. There were rumors that additional staff would be hired etc.

Even if Juneau is removed, how does this help us. Before the stay and 495 things were moving so smoothly even with the frivolous appeals.

Is it safe to give up hope of any recovery?

Anonymous said...

IN-HALE
Is it BG or the accountants asking for the 4506 for '07? Or is that being handled by Freeh Group?

Anonymous said...

Q1. Is it safe to give up hope of any recovery?

Yes, there is hope stay tuned to AZ if the PSC rolls over on 495 the larger stakeholders will rain hell on them it’s already cloudy and started drizzling.

Continue to answer the incomplete notices and submit to the court vendor’s professional judgment 495 allows it, this should stop the additional request and produce a determination.

Q2.Is it BG or the accountants asking for the 4506 for '07? Or is that being handled by Freeh Group?

The last request came from B&G.

IN-HALE

Anonymous said...

I was sifting thru my archive of documents and came across this Objection Filed on Nov 7, 2012. Here are a few pieces submitted to the court prior to the Fairness Hearing see who got it right.

Objectors’ primary complaint is that these proposals, and in particular the economic and property damage settlement, require claimants to trust a process that is patently untrustworthy. Why should any claimant forego their legal rights on a wing and prayer that they will be taken care of in an out of court settlement process, when all of the evidence to date suggests that doing so is at best a riverboat “crap shoot?”

Going this route with no clue as to whether or not the class adjusters will in fact be “claimant friendly,” “more generous than the GCCF,” and “transparent” in the outcome, leaves claimants at great peril.

Anyone who can represent to this Court that this 1200 page settlement proposal is simple, clear, unambiguous, and takes into account all of the contingencies in the analysis process of every conceivable set of circumstances has been sitting in the back of a van with Cheech and Chong too long.

In reality, the reviewers at the fund rarely make an attempt to see that claims get paid; instead they will find the first “missing” document and stop reviewing the claim.

However, many times this “missing” document is not required under the terms of the settlement. They have regularly requested causation documents for claims from Zone, A which do not require any proof of causation.

Both the PSC and BP’s briefs specifically argue that small businesses do not have to provide monthly P&L reports under the agreement. In the PSC’s Support Memo they assert that:

The Program will process and evaluate a small business claim based on bank statements or other underlying data where monthly P&L’s were not prepared in the ordinary course of business. Hence, there is no requirement for the small business owner to engage in a process that is ‘overly burdensome and cost prohibitive’ in order to submit their claim; rather, the burden is on the Program to under take the accounting work at BP’s expense.

As importantly, if not more so, it is morally wrong to let a company of the size, wealth, magnitude and influence of BP circumvent judicial process, particularly when they have the most sordid, morbid, and amoral history of any company ever operating in the United States.

They are the company that created this disaster through their greed, shortsightedness, and unfathomable level of risk taking. They should have to clean it up…all of it. They are the company fined by our regulatory agencies for deliberate violations of the law more than all of their competitors combined.

They are the company who WAS ALREADY ON PROBATION for killing 15 people in Texas City when they helped kill 11 more in the Gulf of Mexico. Any civilian doing the same thing would be on death row right now, not cutting backroom deals to get out of jail again.

This settlement, and the restrictive allowances for victims to extricate from it, is one of design by BP. No one should doubt that they have spent many a day and night calculating their “damage exposure” from this proposal and have only consented to it because they feel they are going to save a great deal of money….money they know was owed to the victims of this disaster.

Plaintiffs would respectfully request that this Court mandate a process that protects the many victims of this oil spill and provides for full disclosure and arm’s length negotiation and amicable resolution of all claims with a backstop of a trial to ultimately resolve contested claims.


IN-HALE

Anonymous said...

The 4506 Requests seem to have replaced the EIN Verification Requests as the BS way of boosting the # of Claims handled up to First Notice category, to make it seem like much more is being done.

We used to receive EIN requests on 75% of claims, rarely with any grounds, but now we rarely see them (only when there may be grounds for attention).

Arbitrary or flat-out incorrect Denials - have gotten several recently. At least with the latter they generally withdraw the Denial after you inquire about it. The former require a lot of time and effort.

And all this with capped attorney and accounting fees.

~Sid

Anonymous said...

IN-HALE, now the claim reviewers/vendors are taking the exact position that BP attempted, but failed, to get the appeal panelists to adopt in that and all of the nearly identical decisions on whether matching issues can be corrected prior to applying AVM. Previously they never smoothed revenues like BP argues for in those decisions, but now they are denying claims after smoothing revenues instead of correcting matching issues through application of AVM.

Anonymous said...

That’s exactly correct the court vendors are tainted with unclean hands that answer to the QA department the mysterious ones.

They are no longer working for the claimant example: 30,165 out of the 53,434 unique claimants paid only requiring 2-3 documents to process the claim.

Over a billion spent on administration currently 72,870 Denials vs. 23,269 unique claimants with calculations paid.

Policy 495 only provided additional tools to reduce, delay or deny claims.

AS AZ HAS REPORTED NEW CALCULATION FOR THE REST OF THE CLASS.

4.3.7. The Settlement Program, including the Claims Administrator and Claims Administration Vendors, shall use its best efforts to provide Economic Class Members with assistance, information, opportunities and notice so that the
Economic Class Member has the best opportunity to be determined eligible for and receive the Settlement Payment(s) to which the Economic Class Member is entitled under the terms of the Agreement.

4.3.8. The Claims Administration Vendors shall evaluate and process the information in the completed Claim Form and all supporting documentation under the terms in the Economic Damage Claim Process to produce the greatest ECONOMIC DAMAGE COMPENSATION AMOUNT that such information and supporting documentation allows under the terms of the ECONOMIC DAMAGE CLAIM FRAMEWORK. By way of example, but not to be exclusive, if the Claimant selected a COMPENSATION PERIOD or BENCHMARK PERIOD etc.…….

Not happening can anyone dispute it!!!!

IN-HALE

Clay said...

Hammer man!
http://www.wwltv.com/story/news/local/investigations/david-hammer/2015/01/30/bp-administrator-makes-millions-with-few-claims-paid/22550959/

Anonymous said...

Incomplete Denials, Causation Denials & Other Denials once again hit a record high.

In the last 6 days another 200 incomplete Denials issued the new total is 46,231.
42 IEL
78 BEL
2 Start-ups
3 Failed Businesses

Causation Denials continue to grow these may be contributed to Policy 495 changing the math test the new total is 4,821 with another 26 added in the last 6 days.

Eligible –No payment jumped to 3614 with another 54 being added these also may be contributed to Policy 495 now over paid by GCCF.

Other Denials jumped to 13,221 with 79 being added this week.

Complements of your friendly claimant court vendor’s thanks for your best effort.

Vendors shall use its best efforts to provide Economic Class Members with assistance, information, opportunities and notice so that the
Economic Class Member has the best opportunity to be determined eligible.

IN-HALE