A claim for damage after a fire on board: the main thing is to pay VW

Braunschweig pelvis | Are the lithium-ion batteries of the four completely new Porsche Taykan to blame the fall of the MS Felicity Ace road transport ship? And if so: gets into the group before complicity? These are issues with which the 12th Civil Chamber of the Braunschweig City Court was supposed to deal with on Wednesday.

Ship owners, Japanese shipping company and its insurers, to which Allianz Group also belongs. You want compensation because you assume that the subsidiary of VW Porsche and VW Logistics Company could not attract the attention of special dangers and necessary precautions. This – as the presiding judge Ingo Michael Gros shows – should not be very easy to prove.

Sank with luxurious bodies on board

Review: February 10, 2022 MS Felicity Ace leaves the port of Emden. Purpose: East coast of the United States.

On the morning of February 16, 2022, a smoke detector begins on the ship. The sailor is sent for verification, he will later indicate that four Porsche Taykan is already on fire on deck 1. Expansion remains in vain – regardless of whether the fact that the extinguishing system on the board does not work properly or because it is usually not intended for this kind of fires is controversial.

Half an hour later, the captain gives the command to evacuate the ship, an hour after the first alarm, all the crew members went aboard – fortunately, no one was injured or killed. Further attempts to remove the transport ship outside, cool, and then pull the next harbor, fails. Frorigan will fall south of the Azores on March 1, 2022.

Large material losses

Losses of material caused by fire in MS Felicity Ace are high from the Volkswagen group and on the side of the shipowner. VW talks about 200 million euros, the parties are still arguing about how high the losses of the shipping company will be. Therefore, the three processes now relate to the question of who should arise. Another process is under consideration in Stuttgart, where Porsche is founded. In addition, you will also meet again in Panama.

And, of course, the question always resonates in the process: how dangerous are electric cars? In fact, this is also emphasized by the chairman of the court on this day – on the contrary, they do not burn more often like a burner. But when you are burning, you burned very hotly and difficult to extinguish. In fact, the whole battery should be laid under water to cool it.

General extinguishing systems do not work

Conventional filthy systems on ships, which mainly work with foam and try to shoot with Co² To strangle, do not work, because new oxygen is created in a burning battery. Shipping companies – also highly specialized as the lines of Mitsui OSK – is difficult to find the answer. That is why the court adheres to this particular point: what exactly would you do in the other way if Porsche or VW pointed to this new type of battery?

But the parties not only argue about this, but also begin much earlier: on the one hand, it was debatable whether the fire was created in Porsches batteries – there are conflicting reports. The investigation is impossible, MS Felicity Ace at an altitude of 3000 meters in the Atlantic. The reason for the study can rely only on indications.

The shipping company and the insurer are mainly based on the crew of the fire. VW Group lawyers, on the other hand, argue with photos of the Portuguese fleet from a burning ship. In their opinion, fire tracks on the shell of the ship offer another fireplace.

And then there will still be questions that lead deep into the contract and responsibility: who loaded the ship and how, who is responsible for the distribution and protection of the cargo, who should accept what risks? Are there actually actual instructions that indicate that the batteries lit themselves from a production error or from the fact that they were erroneously overloaded?

It will be a expensive and long event

To approach the answer here, you will need an extensive opinion of experts, as well as the resumption of interrogation of mainly the Philippine crew – probably an expensive and long enterprise, as the judge warns with regard to the risks of the process.

The court had previously tried to clarify all this in the process of mediation. But six months of negotiations lasted. Now lawyers can comment on the issues raised by the court. Then you will have to agree on an assessment and initiate preliminary loading of a witness. “We will finish before Easter, but I can’t say what Easter it will be,” – Judge Gros, even Madie, before releasing the participants in the process to the midday heat.