20100723
africanews

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A Dutch court fined commodities trader Trafigura one million euros on Friday for illegally exporting toxic waste to Ivory Coast which ended up in the open air, and for concealing the waste's harmful nature.

The judge said during the ruling -- the first ever to convict Trafigura Beheer BV over the toxic waste handling -- the company was fined because it did what European regulations on toxic waste aimed to prevent, "namely the export of waste to the Third World and harming the environment".

Trafigura, one of the world's biggest oil and metals traders with 2009 sales of $47 billion, said in a statement it would study the ruling, and it may file an appeal. The court also convicted a Trafigura employee and a ship's captain.

"While Trafigura is pleased to have been acquitted of the charge of forgery it is disappointed by the judge's ruling on the other two, which it believes to be incorrect," it said.

Trafigura -- which has made settlements to prevent or end court proceedings in Ivory Coast and Britain -- had chartered the ship Probo Koala, which wanted to dispose of hundreds of tonnes of chemical slops in Amsterdam in July 2006.

The ship decided against the cleanup in Amsterdam after being told it would have to pay the clean-up costs.

About a month later, the material was dumped in the Ivorian economic capital Abidjan after Trafigura hired a local company to dispose of the waste. Thousands of residents of the city complained of illnesses.

The government of Ivory Coast said 16 people died.

The Dutch judge said Friday the waste was harmful, caustic and could hurt the skin, though a British judge said last September there was no evidence the waste had caused anything more than "flu-like symptoms".