Decision ID: 001951

In October 2006 the 1992 Fund Executive Committee noted that in September 2006 the Commercial Court in Saint-Nazaire had rendered a judgement in respect of a claim by company selling water sports equipment for losses in 2000 as a result of the incident. It was noted that the Fund had accepted as admissible in principle the loss of income due to the reduced sales of sailboards, fittings and apparel but had rejected the loss from sales of boats on the grounds that the purchase of boats was a long-term investment and therefore less likely to be affected by a short-term event such as an oil spill and that the sales were mostly aimed at sailing schools and other businesses in the tourism industry (but not directly to tourists). It was noted that the Court had stated that the Fund’s Claims Manual did not categorically reject ‘second degree’ tourism claims and had held that 20% of the boat sales were to individuals and that compensation for the reduction in such sales was admissible in principle. It was noted that the Court had held that the other 80% of boat sales were to sailing schools and that the reduction of such sales was also admissible for compensation within the limit of the amount available after compensation had been paid to ‘first degree’ claimants. The Committee noted that the Director was considering whether to appeal against the judgement in the light of the latter statement by the Court, which did not respect the principle laid down in Article V.4 of the 1992 Civil Liability Convention and Article 4.5 of the 1992 Fund Convention that all claims should be treated equally.

Date: 30.09.2006
Category: Pure economic loss (tourism)
Subject: Second degree (indirect loss) claims