dividend payments

Below is a recap of the top news items from this week on Wall Street: 1. With costs related to the Gulf oil spill still rising and unknown, BP (NYSE: BP) announced this week several actions aimed at establishing an outline for how to address the now massive mess.

First, with the aid of President Obama (although some will call it "forced"), BP set up a $20 billion escrow fund as a way to, more or less, catalog expenses related to the spill.

Further, as was most expected last week, the company also suspended dividend payments for the rest of this

hirty-three banks missed their August dividend payments to the Treasury Department for money granted through the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.

Hecla Mining Co., an Idaho-based silver and gold mining company, is deferring quarterly dividend payments to owners of all three classes of its preferred stock to conserve cash and comply with restrictions of a bank credit agreement.

Commercial lender CIT Group Inc., which is trying to avoid filing for bankruptcy protection, said Friday that it is suspending preferred dividend payments.

Bank of America Corp. says its board has authorized roughly $713 million in dividend payments to the U.S. government under the troubled asset relief program.

Dow Chemical Co. announced a plan Friday to retire preferred shares used for its recent buyout of Rohm & Haas, a move that will save it millions in dividend payments.

Uninvolved owners can receive profit distributions instead of salaries, but mind the legal and financial fine print.