Tag: oil spill

€1.57 Billion to Spain and France in Compensation for Prestige Oil Spill

The 1976 tanker Prestige, which broke up and sank after she was refused entry to a harbour of refuge in November 2002, resulted in one of the worst environmental disasters in European history, polluting nearly 2,000 miles of French, Spanish and Portuguese coastline and wildlife, and adversely affecting the fishing industry.

It’s been a long saga, but today the Spanish Supreme Court upheld a decision handed down by the Provincial Court of A Coruña in November 2017 which requires The London P&I Club and the Prestige‘s Captain Apostolos Ioannis Mangouras to pay nearly €1.6 billion in damages to the Spanish government.

France is also set to receive €65 million and Xunta de Galicia €1.8 million.

“Deepwater Horizon”. Economic loss claims from US offshore moratorium dismissed.

On March 10, 2016, Judge Carl Barbier ruled that economic loss claims resulting from the moratorium on offshore drilling imposed by the US government after the ‘Deepwater Horizon’ blowout in 2010 cannot be brought against BP , as the responsible party under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (“OPA”), 33 U.S.C. § 2702(a). The losses resulted from the perceived threat of discharge from other wells, rather than from discharge or the substantial threat of discharge from the Macondo well.

Click to access Deepwater-March2-.pdf