“The civil road to the sinking of the Prestige has been completed,” the Supreme Court said. The amount of compensation is determined. Three times more than expected: EUR 1.5 billion. They will be distributed between the Spanish Government, the Galician and the victims, as reported by the Ministry of the Interior.

On 19 November 2002, the oil tanker Prestige sank into Galician waters and caused the greatest ecological disaster in the Gulf of Galicia and Bizkaia. A violent storm struck him and seriously endangered the state of the ship, which has wandered without direction over the past few days. It broke into two sections, dumping 63,000 tons of fuel into the sea. The chapapote covered the Basque coast.

Compensation will be distributed between the Government of Spain, the Government of Galicia and the 269 affected by the fire in Istanbul. The entity that enters the most money will be the Prestige Insurer: Some EUR 900 million. However, according to Vozpopuli, the insurer will refuse to pay. The amount to be distributed amounts to EUR 1.5 billion, despite the fact that the Public Prosecutor’s Office requested around EUR 4.5 billion.

The long-overdue disaster

In addition to major ecological damage, economic damage was also serious. The instructions lasted for a decade and the trial lasted for more than a year. The Court of A Coruña issued a judgment in January 2016, but noted that the compensation was not defined, which was estimated at EUR 500 million. The amount has recently been known.

However, insurance company The London P&I Club does not comply with the judgment. The magistrates request that the compensation case be brought to the London courts to be tried in an "arbitrary" manner.