Page 116 - claims information pack ebook_e

Guidelines for presenting claims for clean up and preventive measures
Additional and fixed costs
Example
4.9
Specialised oil spill recovery vessels from
several countries work together to collect oil
at sea following a serious incident. Operations
continue over several weeks but after some
time the nature of the oil changes and
becomes widely fragmented so that the use of
these specialised vessels is no longer effective
in recovering any significant quantities of
oil. Experts engaged by the shipowner’s
insurer/1992 Fund pass this opinion to both
the shipowner’s insurer/1992 Fund and to the 4.10
authority within whose waters the vessels
are working. Operations at sea nevertheless
continue but in assessing the subsequent
claim to recover the costs of these operations,
the 1992 Fund sets a series of cut off dates
to reflect the limit of the period for which the
activities of each vessel are deemed to be
reasonably effective, beyond which costs
are not accepted.
4.7 The example above is intended to help
illustrate the interpretation given to
‘reasonable’ measures by the 1992 Fund.
The authorities of a Member State are,
of course, entitled to conduct whatever
measures they deem appropriate and to
bring those operations to a close whenever
they see fit, however, it is always advisable
to regularly review whether such actions
remain reasonable and consequently whether
future claims for the reimbursement of the
associated costs are likely to be considered
admissible.
4.8 ‘Bad press’ can adversely influence the
confidence, motivation and cohesion of
the response organisation at a critical time
when they are under most stress. Although
the importance of good media relations is
recognised, the costs of arrangements to deal
with the media are not considered preventive
measures and the costs of media coverage of
clean-up operations will not be compensated.
Clean-up operations are often carried out
by public authorities or quasi-public bodies
using permanently employed personnel
or vessels and vehicles owned by such
authorities or bodies. Compensation is paid
for reasonable additional costs incurred by
such organisations, i.e. expenses that arise
solely as a result of the incident and which
would not have been incurred had the incident
and related operations not taken place.
Compensation is also paid for a proportion
of so-called fixed costs incurred by public
authorities and quasi-public bodies, i.e.
costs which would have been incurred by 11
the authorities or bodies even if the incident
had not occurred, such as normal salaries for
permanently employed personnel. However,
in order to qualify for compensation, such
costs must correspond closely to the
clean-up period in question and should
not include remote overhead charges.
Personnel provided by public authorities can
offer a number of benefits to the response,
for example, it is likely that command
and control systems are in place that can
enhance the effective organisation of spill
response. For the authorities the redirection
of staff to spill response means that the
normal responsibilities of those staff have
to be covered perhaps leading to additional
costs or loss of efficiency in the day-to-day
activities of the authorities concerned.