French court faults Total, 3 others over Erika oil disaster
January 17th, 2008 by Site AdministratorPARIS, France – A French court Wednesday found Total guilty of negligence and ordered the oil giant and three other parties to pay nearly 200 million euros in damages for the 1999 Erika oil spill, one of France’s worst environmental disasters.
Establishing a legal precedent, the judge ruled that some of the 101 plaintiffs in the case — environmental groups, fishermen, local associations and hotel owners — had the right to compensation for damages from the massive oil spill.
The court ordered Total as well as the owner and the manager of the Erika tanker and the Italian RINA classification firm to pay damages totaling 192 million euros (284 million dollars) to the plaintiffs.
The Erika was carrying 30,000 tons of heavy fuel oil when it broke in two and sank off the Brittany coast on December 12, 1999, polluting a large stretch of coastline and killing tens of thousands of seabirds.
The victims of the oil spill had collectively sought one billion euros in damages from Total and the 14 other parties in the case, but the judge ruled that some of the 101 claims were not admissible in court.
“This is a first in France, it’s historic,” said Allain Bougrain-Dubourg, president of the Bird Protection League, which was awarded 800,000 euros in damages.
It was the first time that a court in France had handed down a conviction for damages to the environment, establishing that a company or person could be sued over a major disaster.
Regional governments in the coastal areas of Brittany, Poitou-Charentes and Pays-de-la-Loire were awarded several million euros in damages to compensate for the massive clean-up costs.
“This ruling is damning for senior officials at Total and at the RINA classification firm,” said Dominique Voynet, a Greens activist and former environment minister.
The court also slapped a fine of 375,000 euros on Total, saying it failed to take into account the age of the ship and deficiencies in its maintenance.
This carelessness had a “causal role in the sinking and as such provoked the accident,” said Judge Jean-Baptiste Parlos.
The judge said Italian owner Giuseppe Savarese and manager Antonio Pollara must have known that repairs to the 25-year-old vessel had been skimped to cut costs and ordered them to pay the maximum fine of 75,000 euros.
The trial, on various charges of endangering lives, causing pollution or failing to respond to a disaster, opened in February last year after a seven-year investigation into the oil spill.
All 15 parties had insisted they were innocent.
The judge acquitted four employees from local maritime authorities who had faced charges of failing to respond to the disaster and the Indian captain Karun Mathur, who had been on trial in absentia.
Also acquitted were two subsidiaries of Total — Total Petroleum Services and Total Transport Corporation — as well as Gianpiero Ponasso, the director of the RINA classification firm, though the company was found at fault.
A lawyer for Total said he would advise the company to appeal the ruling, saying it was unfair but company spokesman Yves-Marie Dalibard said they would study the decision.
Total’s lawyers had argued during the trial that the Erika had a “hidden, undetectable flaw” in its hull and that it should not be held responsible for ensuring the security of tankers it leases from another party.