Decision ID: 003526

In October 2008 the 1992 Fund Executive Committee noted that in July 2008 the Court of Appeal in Rennes had rendered a judgement in respect of a claim by a tour operator in the United Kingdom specialising in selling holidays in various countries for losses suffered in 2000 and 2001 as a result of the incident. It was recalled noted that the 1992 Fund had assessed and paid compensation for losses in 2000, but had rejected the claim for losses in 2001 since it had considered that the claimant had not established a link of causation between the alleged damage and the pollution resulting from the incident. It was also recalled that in a judgement rendered in February 2007 the Commercial Court in Lorient, having stated that the Fund’s admissibility criteria were nor binding on national courts, had held that other businesses in the area had not been affected by the Erika incident, that the camping activity in 2001 had been normal bearing in mind the weather conditions, that the claimant had not provided any evidence of the alleged loss nor of a link of causation between the alleged loss and the incident, and that for these reasons the Commercial Court had rejected the claim. The Committee noted that in its judgement the Court of Appeal had stated that it had not been proved that the Erika incident had negatively affected the number of tourists in 2001, that there were other factors explaining that in 2001 some businesses in the tourism sector may not have reached the results obtained before the Erika incident and that for these reasons the Court of Appeal had rejected the claim.