21 September 2009
A Dutch-based oil trading company has offered to pay more than 30 million Euros (U.S. $48 million) to up to 31,000 Ivorians who said toxic waste dumped in Abidjan made them ill in 2006, reports the Dutch news agency, ANP.
However, the company, Trafigura Beheer BV, made the offer without admitting liability, and company director Eric de Turckheim asserted in a statement: "This settlement completely vindicates Trafigura.”
A separate joint statement agreed to by the company and the British law firm representing the Ivorians, Leigh Day and Co., said independent experts had been “unable to identify a link between exposure to... chemicals released from the slops [waste] and deaths, miscarriages, still births, birth defects, loss of visual acuity or other serious and chronic injuries.”
The statement went on to say that Leigh Day “now acknowledge that the slops could at worst have caused a range of short term low-level flu-like symptoms and anxiety.”
De Turckheim said the acknowledgement had opened the way to settlement talks. He said while Trafigura denied liability, it regretted the incident, which followed the dumping of toxic waste from a company vessel, the Probo Koala, by an Ivorian company, Compagnie Tommy.
“Trafigura… recognises that the slops had a deeply unpleasant smell and their illegal dumping by Compagnie Tommy caused distress to the local population,” said De Turckheim. “This settlement is the mark of a company that fully recognises its social and economic commitment to the region.”
No statement was published by Leigh Day. It said in the joint statement that it denied that any of its clients “made any deliberately false claims.”
Hundreds of Abidjan residents flocked to local hospitals three years ago, complaining of the effect of toxic fumes from waste dumps. Angry Ivorians barricaded roads and the country’s Cabinet resigned in response to the anger over the incident. In 2007, Trafigura was reported to have paid $198 million to the Cote d'Ivoire government, also without accepting liability.
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