Indonesian Farmers Launch Class Action Over Oil Spill

SYDNEY,(APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 3rd Augst,2016) - Indonesian seaweed farmers launched a Aus$200 million class action Wednesday over a major oil spill in Australia, claiming the blow-out devastated their livelihoods. The spill in the Montara field in the Timor Sea, north of Australia, leaked thousands of barrels of oil for close to 10 weeks before it was capped. The case filed in Sydney's Federal Court on behalf of up to 13,000 Indonesian farmers is against the firm which operated the well-head platform, PTTEP Australasia. Ben Slade, class actions principal at law firm Maurice Blackburn in Sydney, said the huge spill was still impacting farmers in the eastern Indonesian province of Nusa Tenggara Timur.

"If the company thought that this issue would go away because the farmers are Indonesians, or because they didn't understand their legal rights, they were sorely mistaken," he said in a statement. "This case is a perfect example of how the Australian class action regime provides access to justice for people who would otherwise have no voice and no recourse against their corporate wrongdoer."