Decision ID: 001847

In March 2006 the 1992 Fund Executive Committee noted that in December 2005 the Civil Court in Saint-Nazaire had rendered a judgement in respect of a claim by a company letting commercial premises to a take-away business for loss of income allegedly suffered in 2000, 2001 and 2002 as a result of the incident. It was noted that the Fund had rejected the claim on the grounds that the claimant provided services to other businesses in the tourist industry but not directly to tourists and that, for this reason, there was not a sufficient link of causation between the pollution and the alleged loss. The Committee noted that the Court had stated that it was not bound by the Fund’s admissibility criteria which were internal to the Organisation and did not have a supranational character. It was noted that the Court had decided that there was a reduction in the letting of the premises in 2000 and that this loss should be considered as directly relating to the incident, but had agreed with the Fund that there was no link of causation between the losses in 2001 and 2002 and the pollution. The Executive Committee decided that, since the judgement was at variance with the Fund’s admissibility criteria with regard to ‘second degree’ claims, the Fund should appeal against the judgement.