Practice Areas - Hazardous Cargoes

March 10, 2010

HAZARDOUS CARGOES

The carriage of hazardous goods presents the shipowner with the unique set of potential problems. These include compliance with various international (International Maritime Dangerous Goods Code) and federal (CFR Title 46) regulations governing safe carriage, potential claims for injury to persons, to other cargoes onboard or to the vessel itself, in cases of fire, explosion or other serious incident. The carrier may also face potential liability for various civil or criminal penalties, as well as criminal sanctions under CERCLA.

The firm has longstanding experience representing owners, operators, charterers, slot charterers and their underwriters in numerous serious casualties involving hazardous chemical cargoes such as acrylonitrile, thiourea dioxide and calcium hypochlorite. In recent years, we handled a series of cases involving the violent decomposition of thiourea dioxide produced in China and shipped aboard vessels of several different operators. In one case we succeeded in settling approximately $8 million in claims for less than 10 percent, and in another, we persuaded the United States Coast Guard to completely withdraw $1.325M in civil penalties assessed against the owner. In a case involving an explosion and fire in a container of calcium hypochlorite which caused substantial damages of approximately $1 million to cargo in adjacent containers, we successfully defended the shipowner at trial in the Southern District of New York and through an appeal to the Second Circuit. Many hazardous cargo cases result in explosions and fires, and this firm has successfully litigated a number of fire cases.

As with our oil pollution and environmental practice, hazardous cargo cases frequently require the rapid deployment of a response team and experts to deal with the inevitable U.S. Coast Guard or National Transportation Safety Board inquiry, potential cleanup and pollution issues, the possibility of criminal sanctions, the media and possible third party claims resulting from water or air pollution. Our response team assigns attorneys with the appropriate experience in these discrete areas, and we have on call qualified experts with whom we have worked before to assist us with fire investigations, chemical characteristics of the hazardous cargoes in question, international and federal regulations pertaining to safe stowage and carriage and any damage to the environment.

Representative Cases