The US federal government has filed suit against the owners and pilot of the container ship that ran into San Francisco’s Bay Bridge on November 7th.
The suit, filed in federal court in San Francisco, seeks compensation for cleanup costs and the harm to natural resources caused by the 58,000-gallon spill of heavy bunker […]

As the political wranglings continue about the oil spill in San Francisco bay, a greater ecological catastrophe is unfolding between Russia and Ukraine.
A tanker carrying 4,000 tonnes of oil broke up yesterday in heavy seas off the Crimean peninsula, splitting in half. One senior official has called it an “environmental disaster”.

And so it continues. Much to the dismay of thousands of Alaskans, Exxon Mobil has won the right to appeal against a $2.5bn damages bill relating to the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
The US Supreme Court said it would hear the appeal against record damages due to victims of the Valdez oil spill. The case has […]

Lawyers for Total have asked a French court to acquit the oil giant over a December 1999 oil spill that killed some 75,000 birds off the western coast of France and caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage.
The lawyers said French and international law shielded the company from any liability and insisted Total had […]

At the time of the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster I remember that someone said “lawyers not yet born will work on this one”.
Some seventeen years later the litigation continues. Exxon’s legal options look more constrained though after a federal appeal court rejected the company’s latest request for the court to further reduce damages against the […]