Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal News Blogs -> International and UK Law

Legal News

: International and UK Law

Buncefield oil fire was result of negligence by Total, says High Court

The Buncefield oil fire, Britain’s biggest peacetime explosion, was the result of negligence by Total, the French oil giant, a High Court judge ruled yesterday. Mr Justice David Steel made the ruling during a preliminary hearing of a case in which victims of the 2005 blast are suing Total and others for up to £1 billion in damages. The court heard that Total and Hertfordshire Oil Storage Ltd (HOSL), a joint venture with Chevron, had previously conceded that negligence was responsible for the huge fire at the Hertfordshire oil depot. On Thursday, in a statement to The Times, Total UK said that the duty supervisor at the time was responsible for the explosion but it refused to admit either civil or criminal liability for the incident. Total and Chevron are facing hundreds of compensation claims from individuals and local businesses. The court heard that the largest single claim was from Marks & Spencer, the high street retailer, whose sandwich business is located near Buncefield and was disrupted for several days after the explosion. The negligence ruling – which took the form of a summary judgment against Total – is important because it means that the issue will not need to be argued when the case goes to a full hearing in October. This is a small but significant early victory for the claimants, who include about 280 families whose properties were damaged or destroyed by the blast. However, compensation is far from guaranteed. Although it admitted negligence, Total UK intends to argue that it should not be liable for damages because it could not reasonably have foreseen that it would cause the destruction it did. Chevron denies negligence. The fire began at the HOSL facility within the Buncefield compound at 6am on December 11, 2005. Forty-three people were injured. All 630 businesses on the nearby Maylands industrial estate were disrupted. Asos, the fashion retailer whose main warehouse is less than a mile from the Buncefield site, was forced to suspend its shares and halt internet sales because of the disruption. Firefighters took 59 hours to extinguish the fire, in which 20 fuel containers were set alight. In addition to damage to local businesses and homes, about £10 million worth of fuel was destroyed. There was damage to housing in Dacorum and St Albans and about 2,000 people were moved from homes and businesses in Hemel Hempstead after the explosion, which could be heard up to 40 miles away. A report in 2006 by an independent investigation board did not apportion blame, but found that human error and faulty safety equipment had been responsible. To improve their chance of securing compensation, lawyers for the claimants asked the judge for permission to amend their case, adding an accusation of public nuisance to the existing charge of private nuisance. In a public nuisance, loss or damage is suffered by a local community as a whole rather than specific individuals who suffer private nuisance. The new claim, which was admitted by the judge, gives the claimants another avenue of attack and is significant because under English law victims of public nuisance are able to claim compensation in instances where a private nuisance claim would not entitle them to damages.

Full post as published by International and UK Law on May 23, 2008 (boomark / email).