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LUXEMBOURG—Total SA, Europe’s third-largest oil company,
may not be liable for all of the costs a French
community incurred cleaning up the damage caused by the
oil tanker Erika in 1999, an adviser to the European
Union’s (EU) top court said.
International law limits Total’s liability to pay for
the cleanup stemming from the Erika spill, the adviser
said in an opinion last week. The French district of
Mesquer, which is 200 kilometers south of the spot in
Brittany where the Erika sank, is suing Total for almost
€70,000 ($109,000).
Total is
only liable for all of the costs if “the damage was
caused intentionally or recklessly,” said Juliane Kokott,
an advocate general at the Luxembourg-based Court of
Justice. The court follows this legal advice in a
majority of cases.
The
almost 10-year-old environmental disaster killed tens of
thousands of birds and polluted 400 kilometers of coast.
The community of Mesquer on the western coast of
France,
which sued Total in 2000, argues that under EU
legislation the Paris-based company is solely
responsible for the cleanup. Such a ruling would cause
“utter chaos,” Total’s lawyers argued.
EU
waste-disposal rules “should simply not apply to coastal
pollution by heavy fuels,” Total lawyer Jean-Paul
Hordies told the EU court at a January 22 hearing.
Victims
of oil pollution have the right to some compensation
from an international fund for damages caused by oil
pollution.
The
European Commission, the EU’s executive agency, argued
that because compensation from that fund is limited, EU
rules apply in waste-disposal cases that aren’t provided
for under international legislation.
The case
has no legal relationship to a separate French lawsuit
where Total was ordered in January to pay a share of a
more than €190 million fine for the incident. Mesquer
received €500,000 in that ruling.
The case
is C-188/07 Commune de Mesquer v. Total France, SA,
Total International Ltd. (Bloomberg) |
