Decision ID: 002017

In March 2007 the 1992 Fund Executive Committee noted that in February 2007 the Court of Appeal in Rennes had rendered a judgement in respect of a claim by the owner of a company letting commercial premises to a take-away business for loss of income allegedly suffered in 2000, 2001 and 2002 due to the incident, which had been rejected by the Fund on the grounds that the claimant had provided services to other businesses in the tourist industry but not directly to tourists, and for that reason, there was not a sufficient link of causation between the alleged loss and the pollution. It was recalled that in December 2005 the Civil Court in Saint-Nazaire, having stated that it was not bound by the Funds’ admissibility criteria, had held that the losses in 2000 should be considered as directly related to the Erika incident, but had rejected the claim for losses in 2001 and 2002 on the grounds of a lack of a link of causation. It was recalled that the Committee had decided that the Fund should appeal against the judgement, since it was at variance with the Funds’ admissibility criteria with regard to ‘second degree’ claims. The Committee noted that the Court of Appeal had reversed the judgement by the Court of first instance and had rejected the claim on the grounds that other factors unrelated to the incident had had an impact on the business and that the claimant had not established that there had been a link of causation between the alleged loss and the pollution.