Court ruling due in Total French oil spill trial

Typography
PARIS (Reuters) - A French court is due to deliver a ruling on Wednesday on the 1999 sinking of the tanker Erika, a case in which oil giant Total is accused of responsibility for one of France's worst environmental disasters. Total, which chartered the tanker, has denied responsibility for a spill that poured 20,000 tons of toxic fuel oil into the sea, polluted 400 km (250 miles) of coastline and killed tens of thousands of sea birds.

By Thierry Leveque

PARIS (Reuters) - A French court is due to deliver a ruling on Wednesday on the 1999 sinking of the tanker Erika, a case in which oil giant Total is accused of responsibility for one of France's worst environmental disasters.

Total, which chartered the tanker, has denied responsibility for a spill that poured 20,000 tons of toxic fuel oil into the sea, polluted 400 km (250 miles) of coastline and killed tens of thousands of sea birds.

After a trial lasting four months, the hearing at the Paris Criminal Court ended in June and magistrates have since been preparing the judgment in one of the biggest environment trials France has seen.

!ADVERTISEMENT!

The world's fourth largest oil group is accused of marine pollution, deliberately failing to take measures to prevent the pollution and complicity in endangering human lives.

It is among 15 organizations and individuals charged in a case that led to the uncovering of a murky world of tangled ship ownership and chartering arrangements that plaintiffs said hindered effective regulation.

As well as possible fines, Total faces compensation claims totaling around 1 billion euros ($1.49 billion) from civil parties including public bodies, environmental groups and businesses like oyster and salt producers affected by the spill.

The Erika, a rusting, Maltese-registered tanker, broke in two and sank in heavy seas in the Bay of Biscay some 70 km off the French coast on December 12, 1999.

Its 26 crew were lifted to safety by helicopter and its fuel cargo started to wash ashore almost two weeks later, killing between 60,000 and 300,000 birds -- the largest number of sea birds ever known to have died in an oil spill.

Some 270,000 tons of waste, made up of fuel oil, seawater, sand and stones had to be treated in the cleanup operation, in which Total has already spent some 200 million euros.

Plaintiffs have accused Total of negligence in investigating the condition of the ship and of not acting quickly enough when the accident happened.

Total has said it chartered the 24-year-old Erika in good faith, relying on documents certifying the ship was seaworthy, and learned that its internal structures were corroded only as a result of an examination after the accident.

Besides Total and two of its subsidiaries, the ship's Indian captain, its owner, its management company, four French maritime officials and the Italian maritime certification company RINA, which classified the ship as safe, are also on trial.

(Writing by James Mackenzie, editing by Tim Pearce)