At around 12:30 p.m. on April 11, 1991, a devastating explosion occurred on board the VLCC Haven, a Cypriot-flagged oil tanker anchored off the port of Genoa-Voltri, carrying approximately 144,000 tonnes of crude oil. The explosion led to a massive fire, which, over the next 48 hours, caused the vessel to break in two and sink at a depth of around 90 meters. Tens of thousands of tonnes of oil were spilled into the sea, much of which washed ashore in the following days and weeks, polluting the entire Western Ligurian coastline and the adjacent French coast from the Italian border to Toulon, resulting in the most severe environmental disaster in the history of the Mediterranean.
Proceedings for the limitation of liability under the 1969 CLC Convention were initiated before the Court of Genoa. Hundreds of claims were filed by individuals and entities seeking to be admitted as creditors in the limitation fund—primarily tourism and beach businesses from the Italian and French Riviera, as well as companies specialized in pollution containment and clean-up operations. Several Italian and French municipalities, along with the Italian and French governments, also submitted claims.
The large number of parties involved created significant organizational challenges in managing the procedure, especially given the novelty of the matter. At the time, the only previous Italian case applying the 1969 CLC Convention was the 1985 Patmos case before the Court of Messina, which involved far fewer claimants.
Among the most important legal issues was whether non-economic environmental damage (damage beyond property loss) could be compensated under the CLC system. If so, how should it be quantified, and who would have standing to claim for it?
In 1991, Italy had recently enacted Law No. 349 of July 8, 1986, whose Article 18 codified, for the first time, the notion of environmental damage. In 1987, the Italian Constitutional Court had confirmed the legitimacy of this provision (Judgment No. 641 of December 30, 1987). Being non-economic damage, Article 18 provided for equitable compensation, taking into account factors such as the seriousness of the conduct, introducing a sanctioning element absent from ordinary civil liability.
Conversely, under the CLC Convention, the prevailing international interpretation at the time was that “pollution damage” was limited to economic losses. This position was later codified in the 1992 Protocol, which defined pollution damage as follows:
“Pollution damage” means:
(a) loss or damage caused outside the ship by contamination resulting from the escape or discharge of oil from the ship, wherever such escape or discharge may occur, provided that compensation for impairment of the environment other than loss of profit from such impairment shall be limited to costs of reasonable measures of reinstatement actually undertaken or to be undertaken;
(b) the costs of preventive measures and further loss or damage caused by such measures.”
This led to extensive litigation initiated by several Ligurian municipalities, who, outside of the CLC limitation procedure, sought compensation for non-economic environmental damage under the Italian national law, invoking Article 18 of Law No. 349/1986. They claimed equitable compensation without being subject to the liability limitation of the CLC Convention or competing with other creditors in the limitation fund.
The entire legal framework was later reorganized through Legislative Decree No. 152 of April 2, 2006 (implementing Directive 2004/35/EC), which repealed Article 18 of Law No. 349/1986 and introduced the current rules on environmental damage, now contained in Articles 300 and following of the Environmental Code (Codice dell’Ambiente).
Siccardi & Bregante represented the French State, numerous municipalities from the Alpes-Maritimes and Var Departments, as well as several Italian companies involved in the pollution response and subsequent clean-up of the Ligurian coast.
