Prestige호 유류오염손해에 대한 스페인 대법원판결의 집행과 선급협회 상대 구상소송

Abstract

Although Spain is a 1992 CLC and 1992 FC contracting state, the Spanish Supreme Court denied the shipowner’s right to limit liability by mixing the Convention and domestic laws, while ruling that P&I insurers should compensate the insurance policy limit of cover without defense. In response, the involved P&I Club argued that when claiming compensation for damages in excess of the shipowner’s liability limit under the Convention, it should be interpreted in accordance with the English laws and London arbitration. Then, it was argued that the Pay to be paid rule applies. The position that the governing law in insurance contracts becomes the governing law for direct action is the same as that of Korean courts, but the widespread recognition of direct action only for the Korea P&I Club, which uses Korean law as the governing law, is a task to be solved. The London arbitration awarded that the debt was non-existent as requested by the club, and the London High Court and the Court of Appeals recognized the arbitral award. However, under EU regulations requiring the recognition of judicial rulings by other member states, the EU Court of Justice decided that London arbitral award could not prevent the recognition of the Spanish Supreme Court’s judgement. UK Supreme Court will decide whether it will accept the above EU Court of Justice’s decision. Spain claimed damages in the United States and France in France against ABS, which was the then-classification society of the Prestige. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rejected Spain’s claim due to lack of proof. The French Court of Cassation decided that only certification affairs could use state immunity and that state immunity was not applied to classification affairs such as regular inspections. Therefore, the classification societies need to purchase liability insurance to a very high limit of cover.