Cashed-strapped multinational steel producer ArcelorMittal has been ordered to pay the Point Lisas Industrial Port Development Corporation Ltd (Plipdeco) $1.6 million in compensation for failing to address pollution emanating from its plant before its closure earlier this year.
In a judgment deliverered in late July before he was elevated to the Court of Appeal, former High Court Judge Peter Rajkumar had ruled the company, currently under liquidation, failed to honour its 30-year lease with State-owned Plipdeco, as it did not address air pollution concerns raised in over 70 letters of complaint it (Arcelor Mittal) received over the past four years.
He also granted an injunction preventing the reopening of the plant until the issues of air emissions were addressed.
This will affect anyone who assumes control of the operation after the liquidation is completed. The company shut its local operations in April and sent home hundreds of workers due to financial issues caused by low international steel price.
However, Plipdeco lost its claim for compensation for damage to its equipment, which it claimed was caused by the direct-reduced iron (DIR) particles emanating from ArcelorMittal’s plant, loading and offloading of raw materials and from its slag waste piles.
The company’s lawyers had contended that the offending emissions could have emanated from another steel producer in the industrial estate.
Rajkumar said while Plipdeco was able to prove ArcelorMittal had released the emissions, significantly higher than recommended levels from the World Health Organisation (WHO, its scientific experts failed to show that the particles found on its equipment and on the vessels of its customers came from the company’s operations and led to corrosion of the equipment.
He rejected Plipdeco’s claim that it should be infered that the emissions from the plant were connected with residue on its equipment due to wind direction and the close proximity of port and the plant.
“The difficulty with this argument is that in its simplicity and appeal to common sense, it ignores the need for the causal link to be proved, between dust on and affecting the claimant’s equipment, and Mittal source dust.
“This is even moreso in the context of a claim for several million dollars which must be strictly proven,” Rajkumar said in his 26-page judgment.
As a result, Rajkumar said Plipdeco was only entitled to nominal damages provided for under the contract, which was calculated at $7,500 for the 214 documented days of emissions over the past four years as agreed on by both parties. ArcelorMittal was also ordered to pay Plipdeco’s legal costs.