Individual Liability Under OPA and Cercla: Strategies to Limit Exposure

by Raymer McQuiston

The US Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA) and its companion environmental law, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (Cercla), have increased dramatically the risk that directors, managers and officers of shipping companies, charterers and operators may be personally liable if a spill occurs from a vessel under their control or authority to control.

The statutes and US courts’ expansive interpretation of the statutes – liability of individuals has not been consistently made in various federal jurisdictions – now provide a broad pool of potential claimants with the right to seek and, in some instances seek aggressively, damages and clean-up costs against a director, manager or officer (corporate individual) even where the involvement of the corporate individual was relatively passive.

Already cautious about operating in US waters with respect to the threat of high court awards and punitive damages, corporate individuals must now deal with divergent court standards adopted as a basis to establish individual liability.

This is only an excerpt of Individual Liability Under OPA and Cercla: Strategies to Limit Exposure

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