15 Nov, 2017 @ 14:57
1 min read

British insurance company to pay part of €1.8 billion in damages to Spain government for disastrous 2002 oil spill

prestige
The Prestige as it snapped in two
The Prestige as it snapped in two

A SPANISH court has ordered a British insurance firm to cough up part of €1.8 billion in damages to the Spanish government.

The A Coruña court ruled that The London P&I Club must pay €1 billion towards the damages brought on by the 2002 Prestige tanker oil spill, one of Europe’s worst environmental disasters.

The captain of the ship must also pay towards the costs, which include €61 million in damages to France, which was also affected.

 

The rest must be paid by ship owner Mare Shipping Inc. and the International Oil Pollution Compensation Funds, a grouping of two inter-governmental organisations that provide compensation for environmental damage resulting from spills.

Oil washes up on Spanish shores following the accident

The Prestige tanker ran into trouble in rough seas in November 2002.

Within a few days it broke in two and sank off the coast of Galicia, spilling 63,000 tonnes of oil into the sea.

The oil would blacken 2,980 kilometres of shoreline in Spain, France and Portugal.

There was catastrophic damage to wildlife and the environment, as well as to the region’s fishing industry.

Laurence Dollimore

Laurence Dollimore is a Spanish-speaking, NCTJ-trained journalist with almost a decade’s worth of experience.
The London native has a BA in International Relations from the University of Leeds and and an MA in the same subject from Queen Mary University London.
He earned his gold star diploma in multimedia journalism at the prestigious News Associates in London in 2016, before immediately joining the Olive Press at their offices on the Costa del Sol.
After a five-year stint, Laurence returned to the UK to work as a senior reporter at the Mail Online, where he remained for two years before coming back to the Olive Press as Digital Editor in 2023.
He continues to work for the biggest newspapers in the UK, who hire him to investigate and report on stories in Spain.
These include the Daily Mail, Telegraph, Mail Online, Mail on Sunday and The Sun and Sun Online.
He has broken world exclusives on everything from the Madeleine McCann case to the anti-tourism movement in Tenerife.

GOT A STORY? Contact newsdesk@theolivepress.es or call +34 951 273 575 Twitter: @olivepress

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