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The Trafigura Settlement

We have reported earlier about legal action of 31,000 Ivorians before the High Court in London against international trade company, Trafigura, deriving from toxic waste spill in Ivory Coast, which caused the death of a number of  people and the illness of thousands. This case now appears to be settled, even tough Greenpeace informs that it will continue legal proceedings aginst Trafigura. We highlight here some points from the Joint Final Settlement agreed between Leigh, Day & Co., who represented the victims, and Trafigura.

These independent experts are unable to identify a link between exposure to the chemicals released from the slops and deaths, miscarriages, still births, birth defects, loss of visual acuity or other serious and chronic injuries. Leigh Day and Co, in the light of the expert evidence, now acknowledge that the slops could at worst have caused a range of short term low level flu like symptoms and anxiety.From these investigations, it is also clear that there are many claims which havebeen made for symptoms, in some cases perhaps understandably, which are unconnected with any exposure to the slops.  In the light of the expert evidence, Leigh Day & Co withdraws the comments made on its website on 8 November 2006 and subsequently, which alleged, among other things, that the slops had caused a number of deaths and miscarriages. Trafigura and Leigh Day & Co have accordingly resolved the libel proceedings brought by Trafigura. Leigh Day & Co deny that any of their clients have made any deliberately false claims. In the light of assurances given to their senior leading counsel and in view of his advice, Leigh Day withdraw any allegation that there has been impropriety on the part of Trafigura or any of its legal advisors, (including Macfarlanes) in investigating the claims.

2 Comments

  1. Flavio Trillo Flavio Trillo 13 October 2009

    Just a quick note: Yesterday, the British Guardian reported (or rather, didn’t report) on a question raised by an MP… seems to be related to trafigura, as well. The paper was ordered not to divulge any information, regardless of the fact that it’s long been held that reporting parliament is a constitutional right of the media and the people.
    Guardian article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/oct/12/guardian-gagged-from-reporting-parliament
    More here: http://www.wikileaks.com/wiki/Minton_report:_Trafigura_Toxic_dumping_along_the_Ivory_Coast_broke_EU_regulations,_14_Sep_2006
    and here: http://order-order.com/
    br,
    F.

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