The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal addressing whether a mixture of petroleum and chemicals constitutes “oil” under the Oil Pollution Act (OPA). In doing so, the Court has effectively rejected the efforts of...more
Late last month, in Munoz v. Intercontinental Terminals Company, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals held that the liability provisions of CERCLA and the Oil Pollution Act do not overlap and that, consequently, where oil and...more
In 1990, Congress passed the Oil Pollution Act, also known as the OPA. The act was in response to the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989, and it amended the Clean Water Act of 1972. Its purpose was to avoid oil spills from...more
On October 5, 2021, the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois denied the plaintiffs’ Motion for Class Certification in Morr v. Plains All American Pipeline, LLC 2021 WL 4478660 (S.D. Illinois,...more
US DOJ recently announced a settlement of federal and state natural resource damage (NRD) claims asserted by federal and state trustees under the Oil Pollution Act (OPA) and state law against CITGO Petroleum Corporation...more
On January 15, 2021, the US Environmental Protection Agency (the EPA) announced that it approved an application from the State of Texas to administer the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) program for...more
In a matter of first impression, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has ruled that an oil-filled submerged electrical transmission cable is a "facility" under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA). Power Authority...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit recently reversed a lower court decision that held that the release of thousands of gallons of oil from a submarine power-transmission cable into Long Island Sound was not...more
Negotiating a contract, a charter party in maritime parlance, is a balance of leverage and sometimes a leap of faith. Certain issues are more important to companies than others, and for those issues, the language of clauses...more
The final decision in the ATHOS I saga has recently been issued by the U.S. Supreme Court, upholding the decision of the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit to the effect that a plain reading of the language found in...more
On March 30, 2020, in Citgo Asphalt Refining Co. v. Fescati Shipping Co., Ltd., the U.S. Supreme Court held that, based on its specific wording, a charter party’s safe-berth clause constituted an express warranty of safety,...more
Does a charterer that agrees to nominate a “safe berth” to load and discharge cargo guarantee the berth’s safety for the vessel? If you are litigating this issue in the U.S. courts within the Second and Third Circuits, the...more
Three environmental organizations filed a Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief (“Complaint”) in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York against the United States Environmental...more
Court Faults FERC in its Handling of ANR Storage Company’s Six Year Quest for Authorization to Charge Market-Based Rates for Natural Gas Storage Services - On September 21, 2018, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District...more
There are few questions more important in the context of oil spill liability than who constitutes a Responsible Party under the U.S.’s Oil Pollution Act (OPA). Recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in...more
The 2012 Macondo Well blowout and Deepwater Horizon rig explosion gave rise to a slew of lawsuits. Our subject today is one of them. ...more
In an important decision of first impression construing the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (“OPA,” 33 U.S.C. §§2701 et seq.), the Fifth Circuit has held the owner and operator (“Nature’s Way”) of a “dominant mind” tugboat liable...more
On March 29, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit decided an important oil spill cost recovery case: In re Petition of Frescati Shipping Co., Ltd. v. Citgo Asphalt Refining Co., et al. It is a case concerning the...more
The Foreign Spill Protection Act of 2017 amends the Oil Pollution Act and Clean Water Act to hold foreign-based offshore facilities liable for spills entering U.S. waters - New law establishes oil spill liability in the...more
In two issues of first impression, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals read the complete defense provisions for oil spills under the Oil Pollution Act (“OPA”) to strictly construe the defenses and make them only very narrowly...more
On November 7, in U.S. v. American Commercial Lines, LLC, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed the District Court’s ruling that American Commercial Lines (ACL), the owner of a tug boat whose contracted...more
On September 15, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit released a significant Oil Pollution Act (OPA) ruling. The case is Ironshore Specialty Insurance Company v. U.S., et al. The Court of Appeals affirmed the...more
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held that a responsible party under the federal Oil Pollution Act (OPA) could seek contribution for cleanup costs—even though they may include purely economic damages—from a partially liable...more
In a recent ruling dated June 9, 2017, In re: Complaint of Settoon Towing LLC, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit interpreted the statutory language of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA) to grant the responsible...more
Maritime law is known for its “hoary” precedents from long ago. But in Settoon Towing v. Marquette Transportation Co., the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit rejected an aging principle of maritime law in...more