Despite being ultimately responsible for the dumping of a load of toxic rubbish which cause injury and probably death in the Ivory Coast in 2006, the amoral vermin Trafigura and their vile shysters Carter-Ruck have scored one over the BBC.
After negotiations with Trafigura director Eric de Turckheim the BBC broadcaster agreed to apologise for a Newsnight programme, pay £25,000 to charity, and withdraw any allegation that Trafigura's toxic waste dumped in Africa had caused deaths
That said BBC issued a statement, pointing out that the dumping of Trafigura's hazardous waste had led to the British-based oil trader being forced to pay out £30m in compensation to victims.
"The BBC has played a leading role in bringing to the public's attention the actions of Trafigura in the illegal dumping of 500 tons of hazardous waste" the statement said. "The dumping caused a public health emergency with tens of thousands of people seeking treatment."
Trafigura had only brought the libel action against a single aspect of Newsnight's reporting, the BBC statement went on: "Experts in the [compensation] case were not able to establish a link between the waste and serious long-term consequences, including deaths."
BBC sources said one factor in the management decision to settle was the fear that Carter-Ruck, Trafigura's libel lawyers, could run up potential bills of as much as £3m if the issue came to a full trial, particularly in the uncertain climate of British libel law. A hearing would have to be conducted before controversial libel judge Mr Justice Eady.
De Turckheim issued his own statement this morning, repeating the contentious claim that "The slops were... dumped illegally by an independent company called Compagnie Tommy – a deplorable action which Trafigura did not and could not have foreseen."
This is despite internal emails published by the Guardian show that Trafigura executives were indeed aware of the hazardous nature of their waste, and the need for specialist expensive disposal.
Once again it is clear that Trafigura are a greedy and avaricious company that does not care about the consequences of its actions. There is no way that they did not realise that offering a contract on the cheap in the Third World would not have consequences. Couple these examples of human detritus to another amoral rabble in the form of Carter-Ruck and a risible libel law and you get travesties like this.
Showing posts with label Carter-Ruck. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Carter-Ruck. Show all posts
17 December 2009
17 October 2009
Trafigura stops suppressing report on Abidjan toxic waste dumping
It was with great pleasure to see the front page of today’s Guardian. The lead story reported on a victory against Carter-Ruck and Trafigura who had tried to suppress a scientific report about toxic waste dumping in West Africa, that was shown to the Guardian.
Yesterday evening Carter-Ruck, libel lawyers for Trafigura, wrote a letter to the Guardian which said the newspaper should regard itself as "released forthwith" from any reporting restrictions. This come after the paper was hit by a "super-injunction" banning all mention of it, despite the fact that it had been the subject of a parliamentary question.
The report, commissioned in September 2006 by Minton Treharne and Davies, said that based on the "limited" information they had been given Trafigura's oil waste, dumped cheaply the month before in a city in Ivory Coast, was potentially toxic, and "capable of causing severe human health effects".
The study said early reports of large scale medical problems among the inhabitants of Abidjan, were consistent with a release of a cloud of potentially lethal hydrogen sulphide gas over the city. The effects could have included severe burns to the skin and lungs, eye damage, permanent ulceration, coma and death.
The author of this initial draft study, John Minton, of consultants Minton, Treharne & Davies, said dumping the waste would have been illegal in Europe and the proper method of disposal should have been a specialist chemical treatment called wet air oxidation.
Trafigura subsequently did not use the report in the personal injury report in the claim against them and did not disclose the report's existence. Trafigura subsequently issued a series of public statements saying the waste had been routinely disposed of and was harmless. Trafigura based this decision on other reports produced from an analysis of the slops obtained from the Probo Koala ship. Trafigura dismissed complaints of illness in a lawsuit brought by 30,000 inhabitants of Abidjan, before being forced last month to pay them £30m in compensation and legal costs in a confidential out of court settlement.
The oil firm then conceded in a public statement that the toxic fumes could have caused "flu-like symptoms" to the inhabitants. But it was accepted in an agreed statement by both sides that expert evidence did not back the more serious claims of deaths, miscarriages or serious injuries, made in previous official statements by the Ivory Coast and British governments and in a UN report.
Before the settlement announcement, Trafigura's lawyers Carter-Ruck obtained a super-injunction from a judge, banning the Guardian not only from revealing the existence of the Minton report, but also from telling anyone about the existence of the injunction.
They said the Minton report was confidential because it had been obtained for possible use in litigation. Trafigura said the report was only preliminary and had proved to be inaccurate. They said hydrogen sulphide in the waste could not have broken down into a dangerous gas after the dumping and that other experts had concluded: "no other chemicals were released in concentrations capable of causing significant harm to human health".
Carter-Ruck was unable to prevent the publication of internal company emails by the Guardian, which confirmed Trafigura executives had been aware in advance that their waste was hazardous, and knew that it ought to have received expensive specialist treatment. Company traders talked about making "serious dollars" from paying someone to take away their "shit".
A statement by Minton, Traherne and Davies indicates that some of the conclusions in the report were incorrect, being based on limited information and was thus redundant.
Even if elements of the report were incorrect, there is one thing that screams out in all of this. Trafigura are, whichever way you look at it, a bunch of amoral money grabbing bastards who almost certainly would not have cared a damn if people would have died so long as it did not affect their profit margin. Had they given a damn in the first place they would have presented the waste for disposal in a matter legal in the European Union. But oh no, that was far too expensive so they looked for a cheaper option involving a bunch of cowboys in West Africa.
No matter how they spin it, this is the act which shows the very worst face of capitalist greed, the bully boy tactics of their lawyers Carter-Ruck highlighted the amorality of their business. Vermin like Trafigura and Carter-Ruck deserve each other. If there was any natural justice in this world it would be them scraping a desperate living in the margins of a Third World shantytown.
Yesterday evening Carter-Ruck, libel lawyers for Trafigura, wrote a letter to the Guardian which said the newspaper should regard itself as "released forthwith" from any reporting restrictions. This come after the paper was hit by a "super-injunction" banning all mention of it, despite the fact that it had been the subject of a parliamentary question.
The report, commissioned in September 2006 by Minton Treharne and Davies, said that based on the "limited" information they had been given Trafigura's oil waste, dumped cheaply the month before in a city in Ivory Coast, was potentially toxic, and "capable of causing severe human health effects".
The study said early reports of large scale medical problems among the inhabitants of Abidjan, were consistent with a release of a cloud of potentially lethal hydrogen sulphide gas over the city. The effects could have included severe burns to the skin and lungs, eye damage, permanent ulceration, coma and death.
The author of this initial draft study, John Minton, of consultants Minton, Treharne & Davies, said dumping the waste would have been illegal in Europe and the proper method of disposal should have been a specialist chemical treatment called wet air oxidation.
Trafigura subsequently did not use the report in the personal injury report in the claim against them and did not disclose the report's existence. Trafigura subsequently issued a series of public statements saying the waste had been routinely disposed of and was harmless. Trafigura based this decision on other reports produced from an analysis of the slops obtained from the Probo Koala ship. Trafigura dismissed complaints of illness in a lawsuit brought by 30,000 inhabitants of Abidjan, before being forced last month to pay them £30m in compensation and legal costs in a confidential out of court settlement.
The oil firm then conceded in a public statement that the toxic fumes could have caused "flu-like symptoms" to the inhabitants. But it was accepted in an agreed statement by both sides that expert evidence did not back the more serious claims of deaths, miscarriages or serious injuries, made in previous official statements by the Ivory Coast and British governments and in a UN report.
Before the settlement announcement, Trafigura's lawyers Carter-Ruck obtained a super-injunction from a judge, banning the Guardian not only from revealing the existence of the Minton report, but also from telling anyone about the existence of the injunction.
They said the Minton report was confidential because it had been obtained for possible use in litigation. Trafigura said the report was only preliminary and had proved to be inaccurate. They said hydrogen sulphide in the waste could not have broken down into a dangerous gas after the dumping and that other experts had concluded: "no other chemicals were released in concentrations capable of causing significant harm to human health".
Carter-Ruck was unable to prevent the publication of internal company emails by the Guardian, which confirmed Trafigura executives had been aware in advance that their waste was hazardous, and knew that it ought to have received expensive specialist treatment. Company traders talked about making "serious dollars" from paying someone to take away their "shit".
A statement by Minton, Traherne and Davies indicates that some of the conclusions in the report were incorrect, being based on limited information and was thus redundant.
Even if elements of the report were incorrect, there is one thing that screams out in all of this. Trafigura are, whichever way you look at it, a bunch of amoral money grabbing bastards who almost certainly would not have cared a damn if people would have died so long as it did not affect their profit margin. Had they given a damn in the first place they would have presented the waste for disposal in a matter legal in the European Union. But oh no, that was far too expensive so they looked for a cheaper option involving a bunch of cowboys in West Africa.
No matter how they spin it, this is the act which shows the very worst face of capitalist greed, the bully boy tactics of their lawyers Carter-Ruck highlighted the amorality of their business. Vermin like Trafigura and Carter-Ruck deserve each other. If there was any natural justice in this world it would be them scraping a desperate living in the margins of a Third World shantytown.
17 September 2009
Trafigura open, candid and honest (hahaha)
The more I read about the awful events in Abidjan three years ago, the more I see Trafigura resorting to high priced lawyers to suppress any criticism of their actions. Over the past couple of years it has launched attacks on the Dutch and Norwegian press, forced an apology from the Times, demanded that the Guardian take down articles about the story and launched a libel case against the BBC
On 13 May Newsnight carried the Probo Koala story: I won’t repeat everything that was reported but here are the main points
Trafigura has always denied that the chemical waste was dangerous, but we have seen an analysis by the Dutch authorities which reveal it to be lethal.
Newsnight consulted a leading toxicologist, John Hoskins from the Royal Society of Chemistry. He said it would bring a major city to its knees. The waste includes tons of phenols which can cause death by contact, tons of hydrogen sulphide, lethal if inhaled in high concentrations and vast quantities of corrosive caustic soda and mercaptans which John Hoskins describes as "the most odorous compounds ever produced".
Reporters met Jean Francois Kouadio and his wife, Fidel. She had been eight months pregnant with their first child when the fumes swamped their home. Fidel gave birth prematurely and the boy, Jean Claude, died within a day. Their second child Ama Grace was born a year later. She too fell ill. The doctors said that Ama Grace "was suffering from acute glycaemia caused by the toxic wastes". They could do nothing for her and she died.
The medical reports state a "strong presumption" that the deaths of the two children were caused by exposure to the toxic waste and Jean Francois and Fidel now fear they will never become parents.
The reporters also visited the village of Djibi, just outside Abidjan. The head of Djibi, Esaie Modto, told us that every last person there fell ill, two thousand people: "There were women who miscarried, and that was very painful. But still, the worst was that three people, two adults and a girl were killed by the toxic wastes. That was very hard."
When Newsnight first investigated the toxic dumping scandal in 2007 one of Trafigura's founders Eric de Turckheim told Jeremy Paxman "these materials were not dangerous for human beings. It was smelly, but not dangerous."
The BBC also carried a statement from Trafigura date also 13 April, I won’t repeat statements available in other posts but here Trafigura stated categorically:
Once again we saw a high powered company using our ridiculous libel laws to suppress valid public interest stories. We saw it with Schillings and their counterproductive attempts to muzzle Craig Murray and Tim Ireland over Alisher Usmanov’s decidedly murky past. Trafigura used Carter-Ruck and the PR firm Bell Pottinger to stifle a vital news story.
The key contacts in the above release were Adam Tudor (Carter-Ruck) and Neil Cameron (Bell Pottinger). I wonder how they feel about the recent press reports which make it clear that Trafigura were lying all along. If I were either one of them I would feel pretty uncomfortable about dealing any further with the company. But then I am not an amoral shit who has no problem in taking on tainted cash.
On 13 May Newsnight carried the Probo Koala story: I won’t repeat everything that was reported but here are the main points
Trafigura has always denied that the chemical waste was dangerous, but we have seen an analysis by the Dutch authorities which reveal it to be lethal.
Newsnight consulted a leading toxicologist, John Hoskins from the Royal Society of Chemistry. He said it would bring a major city to its knees. The waste includes tons of phenols which can cause death by contact, tons of hydrogen sulphide, lethal if inhaled in high concentrations and vast quantities of corrosive caustic soda and mercaptans which John Hoskins describes as "the most odorous compounds ever produced".
Reporters met Jean Francois Kouadio and his wife, Fidel. She had been eight months pregnant with their first child when the fumes swamped their home. Fidel gave birth prematurely and the boy, Jean Claude, died within a day. Their second child Ama Grace was born a year later. She too fell ill. The doctors said that Ama Grace "was suffering from acute glycaemia caused by the toxic wastes". They could do nothing for her and she died.
The medical reports state a "strong presumption" that the deaths of the two children were caused by exposure to the toxic waste and Jean Francois and Fidel now fear they will never become parents.
The reporters also visited the village of Djibi, just outside Abidjan. The head of Djibi, Esaie Modto, told us that every last person there fell ill, two thousand people: "There were women who miscarried, and that was very painful. But still, the worst was that three people, two adults and a girl were killed by the toxic wastes. That was very hard."
When Newsnight first investigated the toxic dumping scandal in 2007 one of Trafigura's founders Eric de Turckheim told Jeremy Paxman "these materials were not dangerous for human beings. It was smelly, but not dangerous."
The BBC also carried a statement from Trafigura date also 13 April, I won’t repeat statements available in other posts but here Trafigura stated categorically:
- The Probo Koala's slops were a mixture of gasoline, water and caustic soda. According to analyses that Trafigura has seen, it is not possible that the content of the slops could have led to the deaths and widespread injuries which are alleged to have been caused by them. This is supported by independent expert evidence which Trafigura will present in the English High Court in autumn 2009.
- Trafigura's own investigations did reveal that people living in the village of Akouedo (one of the places where the Probo Koala's slops were dumped by Compagnie Tommy) have suffered significant long-term health issues caused by over 40 years of commercial and domestic waste dumping. However, it does not know and will not speculate publicly as to where this waste originated.
- Trafigura has always said that the appropriate place for this case to be heard is in court and we are not prepared to engage in a trial by media. Whilst we refute your allegations, in the light of the impending court hearing, Trafigura does not feel it is appropriate to deal with these matters via the media. We will demonstrate the strength of our case when the trial commences in the autumn."
- Trafigura Limited has today issued proceedings for libel against the BBC in the High Court in London. The action relates to a broadcast on the Newsnight programme on 13 May 2009 and three related stories on the BBC website, concerning the Probo Koala, a Trafigura-chartered vessel which discharged slops in Côte d’Ivoire in August 2006.
- However, the BBC’s one-sided reports on 13 May were wildly inaccurate and libellous, leaving us with no choice but to take legal action. There was no justification or public interest in the BBC misleading its viewers in this way.
- Trafigura has always denied that the slops caused the deaths and serious health consequences presented by the BBC – a position fully supported by independent expert evidence which will be presented to the Court in due course.
Once again we saw a high powered company using our ridiculous libel laws to suppress valid public interest stories. We saw it with Schillings and their counterproductive attempts to muzzle Craig Murray and Tim Ireland over Alisher Usmanov’s decidedly murky past. Trafigura used Carter-Ruck and the PR firm Bell Pottinger to stifle a vital news story.
The key contacts in the above release were Adam Tudor (Carter-Ruck) and Neil Cameron (Bell Pottinger). I wonder how they feel about the recent press reports which make it clear that Trafigura were lying all along. If I were either one of them I would feel pretty uncomfortable about dealing any further with the company. But then I am not an amoral shit who has no problem in taking on tainted cash.
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