Decision ID: 001779

In October 2005 the 1992 Fund Executive Committee considered whether or not to appeal against a judgement by the Commercial Court in La Roche sur Yon in respect of a claim by a company selling water sports equipment for losses in 2000 in its dual activity of sales to individual tourists and to sailing schools in Vendée. It was noted that the Fund had approved the claim for lost sales to tourists, but had rejected the claim for lost sales to sailing schools on the grounds that such sales related to services to other businesses in the tourism industry but not directly to tourists and that, for this reason, there was not a sufficient link of causation between the contamination and the alleged loss. The Committee noted that in its judgement in September 2005 the Court had stated that it was not bound by the Fund’s admissibility criteria and that it was for the Court to interpret the concept of ‘pollution damage’ in the 1992 Conventions and to apply it by determining whether there was a sufficient link of causation between the event that lead to the damage and the losses suffered according to the criteria of French law. It was noted that the Court had held that there was no doubt that there was a direct link of causation between the contamination caused by the incident and the loss suffered, that the loss could not be doubted and was real, and that for these reasons, the Court had accepted the claimed amount in its entirety and ordered the Fund to compensate the claimant accordingly. The Committee decided that, since there were no particular facts in the case that would justify a departure from the position taken by the Fund in respect of ‘second degree tourism claims’, the claim was inadmissible, and in spite of the modest amount involved, endorsed the Director’s proposal that the Fund should appeal against the judgement.

Date: 30.09.2005
Category: Pure economic loss (tourism)
Subject: Admissibility criteria