Umweltverbrechen multinationaler Konzerne - Greenpeace

Legal and/or public
action taken
Subsequent
behaviour of company
with the rules. The Erika tanker was not supposed to be at
sea due to a previously scheduled repair.
- Classification agency (RINA in Italy) is responsible because it
accepted delay for essential repairs to be made on the ship
- Sea transport regulation authority is responsible because they
did not order the ship to stop and come back to the harbour
while being aware of major cracks in the hull.
BUT
- the first responsibility comes to bear on Total Fina Elf, which
should never have committed such a low safety standard ship
for any transportation of an oil product 247 .
-
Court cases: there is a court case before the Paris high court (as the
accident occurred in international waters) and TFE CEOs are
accused of bad governance of the ship management. There were
also minor legal suits from local authorities and some NGOs, none of
them came to any clear accusation against the company.
There were very high intensity public protests after the oil spill,
including Greenpeace actions, which impose TFE to react.
TFE has taken charge of part of the damage control operations, such
as beach cleanup, pumping of the remaining oil still in the wreck and
waste treatment.
TFE has faced hard attacks on its public image, but the company
has not been affected economically; in fact, shareholder value has
just risen.
Legal outcome Minor legal court actions were unsuccessful, as there were
contradictions between rules regarding waste management
regulation and rules considering accidents at sea. The oil on the
shore is not a waste even if it is treated as such. The FIPOL / IMO
rules are considered to be a sufficient liability and compensation
system and so can not be challenged. The court case in Paris
attempted to demonstrate fault in the ordering of the ship for
transport. If the court confirms the fault, TFE will be declared
responsible. This court case is ongoing.
Final Greenpeace
statement
This case clearly demonstrates that a global instrument on corporate
liability and accountability is needed because the current regime can
not sufficiently impose new behaviour upon oil transportation
companies. Since these companies rely on the FIPOL system as a
sort of insurance for the next oil spill, they will never substantially
change the way they manage their ships. However, if under a new
law such as the "US oil pollution act “oil transportation companies
would become liable for all damages with no limitation, and thus they
will be motivated to invest in safer transports. No insurance company
would accept the risk of insuring low safety standards ships and
instead would ask for better quality oil tankers.
affected coastline. Repayment of these TotalFina expenses would only be claimed from the IOPC Fund if there was still
money available after payments were made to private victims and the Government. In effect, the additional amount of EUR
200 million (US$ 181 million) was added to the EUR 180 million (US$ 163 million) available from the 1992 IOPC Funds.
TotalFina announced a net profit of EUR 1.5 billion (US$ 1.36 billion) for 1999, the year of the Erika accident.
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