Twenty years later, the battle for the payment of damages is still being played out in the United Kingdom, where the insurer is based
Six days separate the ‘mayda’y launched by the captain of the ‘Prestige’ after a leak 28 miles from Finisterre from the sinking of the old monocoque loaded with 77,000 tons of fuel. After days of erratic sailing, the old sea dog Apostolos Mangourasthen 67 years old, was identified as the person responsible for the “suicide course” of the ship that stained more than 3,000 kilometers of coastline with tar, from the mouth of the Miño, on the border with Portugal, to the French Atlantic.
Tomorrow marks the 20th anniversary of the great roar in the tanks of the Bahamas-flagged oil tanker, built in 1976 and longer than two football fields. eight days ago had departed from the port of Venspils (Latvia) bound for Gibraltar and only six months ago the ABS classifier had certified that it was fit to navigate. It was the beginning of what became the biggest environmental catastrophe in Spain and that led to the largest judicial process in Galicia for which only three defendants sat on the bench: the captain, the chief engineer and the then general director of the Merchant Navy. Neither the owner company, the Liberian Mare Shipping, nor the certifying company that did not see any safety failure in the oil tanker or other public officials were tried for the ecological disaster that, according to reports from the Prosecutor’s Office, caused damages of almost 4,400 million euros.
Two decades after that ‘mayday’ in the midst of a strong storm in Galician waters, the ‘Prestige’ continues sailing the judicial seas to ensure that the environment of the oil tanker faces the payment of the losses caused. Despite the fact that the Supreme Court estimated compensation in its December 2018 ruling at almost 2,000 million, only 1,000 million dollars can be recovered (barely 900 million euros), which is the amount of the policy signed by the shipowner with the London P&I Club company. The scenario where Spain is waging the final litigation is United Kingdomwhere the insurer is headquartered.
When will the judicial journey of the oil slick end? Parties involved in the process already took for granted a year ago that after the 20th anniversary of the sinking of the oil tanker, the payment of damages would not be resolved. The forecast was fulfilled. Just two weeks ago, the state attorney general and former environmental attorney in Galicia, Alvaro Garcia Ortizacknowledged in an interview with Faro de Vigo, from the Prensa Ibérica group, that it was “difficult” know when this judicial journey would end. “If we were already wrong during the entire investigation of how long this process was going to last in Spain, it is much more difficult to make a forecast in foreign courts & rdquor ;, the prosecutor of the ‘Prestige’ case warned this newspaper. “It can be three months, six months… Like a year or even more. It is impossible to know & rdquor ;, add sources close to the process ten years after the trial began in A Coruña and more than three years since the Provincial Court issued the order for the oil tanker network to face damages, interests and costs.
Nine years of instruction
The judicial tangle of the ‘Prestige’ began in the small court of Corcubión with an instruction that eternalized for nine years. assumed the most prolix summary of the Galician judicial history: almost 300,000 pages. The changes of judge, up to six magistrates were put in charge of the investigation, the multiple international ramifications of the case, added to the anomalies in the expert reports and the disagreement of the majority of the parties, eternalized the first phase of the process. “The continuous changes of judges made them lose three or four years & rdquor ;, sources involved in the case point out. Everything presaged what was to come, a decaffeinated trial and a sentence that ultimately would not resolve the controversies of the environmental catastrophe: what was the cause of the accident and what option would have been better to minimize the scope of the oil slick.
First legal setback
Before the trial began in Galicia, the ‘Prestige’ case had already touched other judicial ports. And he did it on the other side of the Atlantic; in the US, where two months before the start of the process in A Coruña, the Justice shelved Spain’s lawsuit against the classification agency ABS. The process that began in 2003 in New York was closed in 2012 when there was not enough evidence to blame the accident on the Houston-based certifier that had guaranteed that the old oil tanker was seaworthy. This cause cost the Spanish coffers 30 million.
imputed
“It is obvious that there are more people involved in the incident, both political and non-political leaders&rdquor ;, lamented the president of the court of the ‘Prestige’, Juan Luis Pía, at the end of the trial. Those who could have had responsibility from the civil point of view are some parts of the oil tanker’s elusive business network, specifically its shipowner, Universe Maritime, and the navigability certifier ABS. But justice was unable to put them on the bench.
Sentence without culprits
It was a “long & rdquor ;, “arid & rdquor; and “decaffeinated”, as personal parties point out. This was expected. But what was not planned is that the Court of A Coruña dictated on November 13, 2013, on the eleventh anniversary of the sinking of the ‘Prestige’, a sentence without guilty, since it exempted the three from prison and the payment of damages. accused. And as responsible for the oil tanker’s deficiencies, he pointed to the ABS classifier, absent from the trial.
Radical turn of the Supreme
The appeals filed before the Supreme gave a 180 degree turn to the ruling of the Court of A Coruña. Five years had to wait for the final sentence in the Spanish courts. The High Court, in addition to raising the compensation to 2,000 million, declared the ship’s shipping company, without any financial assets, and the British insurer, London P&I Club, with whom the shipowner had signed a 1,000 million policy, as subsidiary civil liability for the catastrophe. dollars, a figure far from the bulky bill of the catastrophe left by the oil slick.
The final litigation in the United Kingdom
Those affected by the damage to the ‘Prestige’ have already received compensation, some items already advanced by the different administrations and the Compensation Fund for Damage due to Hydrocarbon Pollution (Fidac). The battle is now being waged in the UK, where the insurer is based. A ruling issued last June by the Court of Justice of the EU agrees with Spain to proceed with the collection of the insurance policy of the shipowner: arbitration in London cannot block the conviction of the insurer of the ‘Prestig’e issued by a court of another member state. In other words, the magistrates of the CJEU, contrary to the thesis of their general counsel, give priority to the Supreme Court ruling on the payment of damages over the legal maneuvers of the oil tanker’s insurer that tried to shield itself with an arbitration award in a London court to block the execution of the sentence. With the arbitration, the London company wants Spain to abide by the rules of British commercial law and to the conditions of the clauses of the policy. That is to say, that any claim should be subject to arbitration and that the insurer would only be obliged to pay if the owner does so first, something that has not occurred since it avoided the judicial process. Despite the support of the EU Court for Spain’s claim, the closure of the case is still difficult due to Brexit, the complexity of the British legal system and the resistance that London P&I Club intends to continue exercising in court.
Is another ‘Prestige’ case possible?
Maritime safety experts agree that another ‘Prestige’ is possible since, they warn, there are still big holes in European legislation. After the environmental catastrophe in Galician waters, the EU prohibited the entry into European ports of monohull ships as heavy fuel, but this does not prevent them from circulating in community waters. Environmentalists denounce deficiencies in the legislation and the liability regime in maritime transport that, they denounce, “continue to protect the interests of the oil industry & rdquor ;. With the current regime, the responsibility for a spill is limited only to the owner of the ship, with which managers, charterers, shipowners and cargo owners are exempt.
complex instructions
In the judicial sphere, the State Attorney General recognizes the need to resolve the macro-causes in Spain to prevent them from dragging on in the courts, “either through specialization or the intensification of means”. This is an old claim that as the Environment Prosecutor in Galicia had already put on the table on the successive anniversaries of the environmental catastrophe. “If simple cases are delayed, the instructions for processes such as the ‘Prestige, much more & rdquor ;, warns one of the lawyers in the case, who agrees to demand offices that provide support to the court that deals with a complex matter and thus prevent the macro-processes do not take decades to put an end to their judicial journey.