Decision ID: 003544

In March 2009 the 1992 Fund Executive Committee noted that in October 2008 the Court of Appeal in Paris had rendered a judgement in respect of a claim by a company whose main activity was construction and sales of ultra light aircraft and sales of equipment for such aircraft, but also undertook as a secondary activity the towing of advertising banners in Loire Atlantique. It was recalled that the claim, which was for loss of income from 2000 to 2003 in relation to the latter activity, had been rejected by the 1992 Fund on the grounds that the claimant did not sell directly to tourists and that therefore there was not a sufficient link of causation between the contamination and the alleged loss. The Committee also recalled that in September 2005 the Civil Court in Paris had rendered a judgement in respect of this claim in which it had stated that, whilst the Fund’s criteria were not binding on national courts, they could be used as a reference, and had held that since the company did not sell services directly to tourists but only to other businesses in the tourism sector (such as casinos and leisure parks), it had not proven that there was a direct link of causation between the alleged decrease in the towing of aerial banners and the contamination, nor had it shown that the pollution had had any impact on tourism beyond 2000. It was recalled that the Civil Court in Paris had therefore rejected the claim. The Executive Committee noted that in its judgement the Court of Appeal had acknowledged that the distinction made between claimants who deal directly with tourists and are therefore directly affected by a reduction in the number of tourists, and claimants who sell goods or provide services to other companies in the tourism sector but not directly to tourists, was justified in order to avoid that victims more affected by the pollution, mainly claimants in the fisheries sector, received a reduced compensation for their losses to the benefit of claimants whose claims had a more remote link with the resource affected by the pollution. The Committee noted that the Court of Appeal had concluded that the claimant had neither proved to have suffered losses nor the existence of a link of causation between the alleged losses and the pollution caused by the Erika incident and had for that reason rejected the claim.