Oil company held to blame for 1978 tanker spill

Press, 21 April 1984, Page 10

Oil company held to blame for 1978 tanker spill

NZPA-NYT Chicago An American Federal District Court in Illinois has ruled that the Standard Oil Company (Indiana) and two subsidiaries were liable “to the full extent” for damages caused by the oil spill from the Amoco Cadiz, the biggest such accident in the history of tanker transport, in 1978. In a 111-page opinion, Judge Frank McGarr of the Northern District of Illinois ruled that the oil company should pay the complaining French Government, as well as French businesses, municipalities and individuals, for damage caused by the oil slick that polluted 210 km of France’s Brittany coastline. He also ruled that the defendants would have to compensate Petroleum Insurance, of Bermuda, which insured the vessel’s cargo. No figure was set for the amount to be paid, but a hearing was scheduled for May 31 to begin the discovery process for determining damages. Initial claims totalled almost SUS2 billion ($3.04 billion) but some lawyers for the plaintiffs said they did not expect the awards to go above SUS4OO million ($6OB million). While holding Indiana

Standard and its subsidiaries primarily at fault, “with respect to the design, operation, maintenance, repair and crew training,” Judge McGarr said that the oil company could pursue claims against the ship’s builder, Astilleros Espanoles, of Madrid, “to the extent that liability was contributed to by the negligence and fault of the shipbuilder.” The complex case had been widely followed in maritime law circles, earning the description, “the admiralty case of the century” because of the size of the claims and the many jurisdictions concerned. It became the legal equivalent of the Tower of Babel, concerning an American oil company, a Bermudan insurer, the French Government, a Liberian tanker, a Spanish shipbuilder, and a German tugboat company. The dispute began in the darkness of the English Channel more than six years ago when a steering mechanism of the Amoco Cadiz, one of the biggest of the most recent generation of supertankers, malfunctioned in the middle of the night.. After 12 hours of towing and attempted repairs in a

severe storm of battering winds and 4-metre seas, the ship ran aground on rocks off the coast of France. Over the next few days it disgorged 220,000 tonnes of crude oil, spoiling fishing grounds and beaches. Lawyers for the plaintiffs said that new legal ground may have been broken by Judge McCarr’s finding of liability on the part of Standard of Indiana, the corporate parent of the two companies that owned the ship and transported the oil. Standard’s lawyers had argued that an international agreement restricted such claims to the registered owner of the vessel, the Amoco Transport Company. The oil company had tried to put the blame for the spill on several other parties, including Astilleros and the German towing company that tried to haul the crippled ship into port. France was accused of acting too slowly and for “arbitrarily” refusing to add chemical dispersants to the slick in locations where the water was less than 50 metres deep. Judge McGarr rejected those defences, saying, “No duty which France may have had to its citizens could run to the benefit of Amoco.”