General Motors Co. (GM)’s plan to compensate accident victims will be administered by Ken Feinberg, a lawyer who ran payment programs for victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the 2010 BP Plc oil spill, reported Bloomberg.
Starting Aug. 1, Feinberg said he’ll accept claims arising from accidents related to defective ignition switches before and after the carmaker’s 2009 bankruptcy. Feinberg, earlier hired by GM to advise on how it might help customers, said he will spend the next few weeks exploring terms and conditions for a compensation program.
“I have already drafted some preliminary compensation ideas and plan to share them in confidence over the next few weeks with lawyers, public interest groups, GM and others interested in the compensation program,” Feinberg said in a statement today.
After recalling 2.59 million cars with ignition problems which it linked to 13 deaths, Detroit-based GM, founded in 1908, must tackle its biggest challenges since its bankruptcy. They range from more than 100 lawsuits to regulators’ probes on why GM waited a decade or more to fix the fault. The compensation plan will cover an estimated 1.6 million cars made between 2003 and 2007 and another million of 2008 to 2011 model years, GM Chief Executive Mary Barra said.
Barra didn’t say whether Feinberg will run a BP-style compensation fund, or how much money he would have to pay victims. While GM keeps a precise count on some other lawsuits stemming from the recall, it hasn’t estimated how many injury suits it faces, or the size of potential claims on its payment program.
