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Legal action by Spain regarding the Prestige disaster fails in the United States
By h.b. - Jan 3, 2008 - 8:38 AM
ALSO SEE : • Cost of the Prestige oil tanker disaster 938 million €, and rising - Apr 9, 2008 - 6:09 PM

The Prestige at the moment of her sinking in 2002 off the coast of Galicia - Photo EFE
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Spain had made a claim for compensation against the American Bureau of Shipping which had issued a certificate of seaworthiness for the oil tanker
Legal action by Spain against the ABS, the American Bureau of Shipping, and other affiliated companies, which gave a certificate of seaworthiness for the Prestige oil tanker, has been dismissed by a judge in New York.

Spain was looking for compensation from the companies arguing that they had been negligent, after the tanker sank off the coast of Galicia in 2002 leading to one of the most serious ecological disasters ever suffered by Spain.

The claim was placed before the Federal Court in Manhatten in May 2003, but the ABS said that their guilt was not proven in the case.

The defence also said that the International Convention on Civil Responsibility for Pollution Damage (CLC) which had been signed by Spain, prohibited one country claiming compensation from another in this way, if one of the countries, in this case the United States, had not signed the agreement. The Prestige, was sailing under the Bahamas flag, and the Bahamas also had signed up to the CLC.


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ALSO SEE :
• Cost of the Prestige oil tanker disaster 938 million €, and rising - Apr 9, 2008 - 6:09 PM
• Five years since the Prestige went down - Nov 13, 2007 - 7:28 AM
• Prestige Oil Disaster - Five Years On - Nov 13, 2007 - 7:24 AM
• Prestige oil tanker still leaking on the sea bed - Mar 24, 2007 - 12:35 PM
• Prestige wreck to be inspected next year - Dec 3, 2006 - 4:51 PM
• Galicia oil slick confirmed as coming from Prestige tanker - Nov 21, 2006 - 10:49 PM
• Thousands march in Santiago de Compostela in protest at the Prestige oil disaster - Nov 13, 2006 - 9:38 AM