Trafigura Agrees to Toxic Waste Settlement

Oil trading company Trafigura said Sunday it has agreed to a settlement with people who claim they fell ill after a tanker dumped hundreds of tons of waste around the Ivory Coast's main city of Abidjan.

A spokeswoman for Trafigura Beheer BV said the company will pay 950 pounds ($1,546) per person. She spoke anonymously in line with company policy. Trafigura would not comment on how many people it will pay, but British law firm Leigh Day, which brought the lawsuit, has said the case involves 30,000 people.

Trafigura said in a statement that the waste could have caused "low level flulike symptoms and anxiety." It said there was no evidence the waste caused more serious conditions like death, miscarriage, still births or birth defects.

Several thousands of people sought medical treatment, after waste from a tanker chartered by Trafigura was offloaded at several sites around Abidjan in August 2006. Trafigura has said it does not accept legal liability for the incident as the dumping was carried out by a local contractor that acted independently of Trafigura. The owner of the local company was jailed for 20 years in the Ivory Coast last year after being convicted of poisoning.

Trafigura, which is registered in the Netherlands with an office in Britain, said it regretted the incident and accepted that the waste had a deeply unpleasant smell that distressed the local population, but denied that it could cause serious harm.

Trafigura Director Eric de Turckheim said: "Over the past three years, the company has been the target of numerous attacks which have wrongly asserted that Trafigura's actions led to deaths and serious injuries.

"These accusations have now been found to be baseless."

He added: "We have at all times sought to discharge our economic and social commitment to the West Africa region and this settlement is consistent with that philosophy."

Trafigura paid Ivory Coast's government euro152 million (US$197 million) in 2007 to assist in cleaning up the waste without admitting responsibility.