Decision ID: 000789
In October 1997 the 1971 Fund Executive Committee, whilst noting that the criminal Court of Appeal’s judgement was not subject to further appeal, and recognising the enforceability of judgements rendered by national courts under the 1971 Fund Convention, considered that, in view of the provisions of Articles 8 and 18.7 of the Fund Convention, the Convention also provided that such enforcement could be subject to a decision by the Fund’s Assembly or Executive Committee concerning the distribution of the total amount available for compensation under the 1969 Civil Liability and 1971 Fund Conventions. In view of the high degree of uncertainty as to the total amount of the established claims, both as regards many of the claims covered by the judgements of the Court of first instance and the Court of Appeal, and as regards the claims which might be presented at a later stage in the civil proceedings (although the Fund took the view that these claims were time-barred), the Committee decided that payments to claimants who had been awarded a specific amount in the judgements should be limited to 40% of the respective amounts so awarded. The Committee recognised that the question of the 1971 Fund invoking Articles 8 and 18.7 in respect of a final judgement rendered by a competent court raised questions of great importance and therefore instructed the Director to make a study of this issue on the basis of the legal situation in a limited number of Member States.