Decisión nº: 000963

In February 1999 the 1971 Fund Executive Committee considered five claims (by three voyage charterers, a time charterer and a shipowner) for losses allegedly suffered as a result of the closure of the port of Milford Haven or restrictions on ship movements. The Commitee took the view that the alleged losses were not caused by contamination, nor were they caused by preventive measures, since they were a result of a decision by the Port Authority taken for the safety of navigation. For this reason the Committee rejected these claims.The Committee noted that, although these claims had been rejected because the closure of the port and the traffic restrictions were based on safety considerations, claims of that type might be admissible in other cases if the closure or traffic restrictions were necessitated by clean-up operations, provided that there was a reasonable degree of proximity between the loss and the contamination arising out of the incident.