ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with financial losses such as reductions in profits or earnings sustained by claimants as a result of a marine casualty causing or threatening environmental damage.
The most frequent claims of this type have been those by claimants involved in fishing, aquaculture and related industries. These have taken many forms, including contamination of stocks cultivated in fish farms, reduced catches of wild fish or other marine life attributed to contamination, loss of earnings due to suspension of harvesting inside exclusion zones established after a spill, and reduced sales or prices due to loss of public confidence in the quality of the produce. Other typical claims include those by the owners of hotels, restaurants, shops and other tourist establishments for loss of bookings and trade. Outside the fishing and tourist industries many different types of claim have been made for other forms of economic loss, such as those of various parties who may suffer delay or other forms of loss when a port area is affected by a spill and shipping movements are disrupted.
