More than 15,000 Indonesian seaweed farmers may be compensated after oil and gas company PTTEPAA was found responsible for the devastation of their seaweed crops and livelihoods by the Montara oil spill in the Timor Sea in 2009.
The central question before the Court was whether the Montara oil spill was the cause of the catastrophic damage to the Indonesian seaweed farmers crops along the coastal areas of Rote-Kupang located 250 kilometres to the north west of the blowout site. In a resounding judgment Federal Court Justice David Yates found on Friday that Montara oil reached the Rote-Kupang region and caused the damage to the seaweed crops. After considering the extensive pool of evidence before the Court his Honour said:
We will never know the precise mechanism(s) or pathway(s) by which the crops died ... But the fact that: (a) Montara oil from the H1 Well blowout reached the coastal areas of Rote/Kupang; (b) the crops located where the oil was observed died shortly after the oil arrived; (c) this coincident event was widespread in the Rote/Kupang region; and (d) there is no other plausible explanation for this widespread loss, combine to establish the causal connection between the presence of the oil and crop death. The obvious cannot be ignored.
The class action was brought against the company that operated the Montara Wellhead Platform, PTTEP Australasia (Ashmore Cartier) Pty Ltd ('PTTEPAA'), a wholly owned subsidiary of the Thai oil and gas giant PTT Exploration and Production Public Company Limited.
The Court found that PTTEPAA owed a duty of care to Mr Sanda and the seaweed farmers, and that it breached that duty in failing to properly seal the H1 Well that "created a very high risk of a blowout" and "that no other consideration has been raised which militates against a finding of that breach."
The lead applicant in the class action, Mr Daniel Sanda is a seaweed farmer from Rote Island. Mr Sanda and a number of other seaweed farmers from the Rote/Kupang region travelled to Australia and gave eye witness accounts to the Court of the impact on their seaweed crops following the arrival of oil in the waters in which they farmed and of the devastation of their livelihoods and their local seaweed industry.
The Court accepted their evidence and found that:
Notwithstanding the respondent's various criticisms of it, I consider the lay evidence of the observations that were made to be reliable. On the whole of that evidence, I am left in no doubt that, at the time, all witnesses (seaweed farmers, village heads, and other lay witnesses) witnessed a single, strikingly unusual, and unique event in the Rote/Kupang region, which coincided with the quick and dramatic loss of local seaweed crops. I am satisfied that this event was so striking that it is likely that it was fixed in their minds, notwithstanding that it was an event that, not unnaturally, was the topic of conversation between them, perhaps on many occasions, in the following years.
The Court also found that PTTEPAA is liable to pay Mr Sanda's damages for his losses in the period 2009 - 2014 and assessed those damages as being 252 million rupiah (approximately AUD$22,600, not including interest). His Honour stated that:
I am in no doubt that [Mr Sanda] has suffered loss as a consequence of the destruction of his seaweed crop. This loss was not trivial. Indeed, for him it was a very significant loss. I am satisfied that seaweed farming provided him with an income that far exceeded the income he could earn through the exertion of his labour for others.
Maurice Blackburn Principal Lawyer Richard Ryan said:
We are very proud to have represented Mr Sanda and our over 15,000 thousand seaweed farmer clients in this historic win against a large multi-national oil and gas corporation.
This case represents a significant victory for our clients who suffered devastating losses to their seaweed crops as a result of the Montara oil spill.
This is one of the first environmental class actions to go to trial and win and the first funded class action to be brought against an Australian company for cross border pollution-related damage suffered by foreign claimants.
A great deal of credit must go the litigation funder, Harbour, that accepted an enormous risk taking on the oil company in this ground-breaking case. If it wasn't for Harbour our seaweed farmer clients wouldn't have been able to pursue their rights.
We would also like to thank our superb trial barristers, Julian Sexton, Vanessa Bosnjak and Zoe Hillman.
The other seaweed farmers' claims for losses will need to be assessed.
Harbour's senior director of funding Stephen O'Dowd said:
This is a fabulous and well-deserved result for Mr Sanda and his legal team, led expertly by Maurice Blackburn. They have put an incredible amount of hard work and skill into the case, and I am delighted that Harbour has been able to support them through such a long and difficult process.
The Montara oil spill is considered one of the Australia's worst oil disasters. A copy of the entire 330-page written judgment is available here.
