Decisión nº: 001025

In April 1999 the 1971 Fund Executive Committee noted that the Korean Court of first instance had rendered judgements in relation to claims for pollution damage to arkshell farms and hatcheries, specifically alleged mortalities and retarded growth of arkshells caused by chemically dispersed oil. It was recalled that these claims had been rejected by the Fund because there was no evidence that the alleged damage was caused by dispersant or oil and that the Fund had maintained that the decrease in arkshell productivity was due to other factors unrelated to the spill, including overcrowding, decrease in the quality of sediment and water caused by continuous farming, and widespread predation by starfish. It was noted that the Court had rejected the Fund’s arguments concerning the effects of dispersed oil, and although it acknowledged that other environmental factors could have caused the death of arkshells, it held that it could not be said that there was no causal link between the oil spill and the damage suffered by the claimants. It was further noted that the court had rejected the claimants’ method of calculating damages on the grounds of lack of supporting evidence or that their sales records were incomplete and unreliable and had decided to award compensation for ‘pain and suffering’. The Committee instructed the Director to pursue the appeal in respect of the question of facts, the decision to allow compensation for ‘pain and suffering’ or ‘condolence money’ and the apparently arbitrary methods used by the Court to determine compensation.