italian | Giustizia per Norman Atlantic

Following the last hearing in the NORMAN ATLANTIC’s civil case running in the court of Bari, the judge had kept the file in reserve on the many exceptions raised by the counterpart lawyers to support the ineffectiveness and illegitimacy of the notifications and of the whole trial action; on the contrary, by order of the judge dott.ssa SIMONE RAFFAELLA, the Court has instead decided to proceed further in the case and has accepted our request to extend the claim for 26 million euro against VISEMAR COSTRUZIONI, owner of the “naked” hull of the Norman Atlantic ship, then leased to Visemar Navigazione and in turn from this rented to the Greek company ANEK AE. Following the summons for the third party’s call in the trial, the first company will then be jointly held with the others to pay all damages to passengers.

The next hearing of the trial is scheduled for 03/28/2019 09:30 AM FOR THE CALL OF THE THIRD COMPANY.

In the meantime, the criminal trial – passed the phase of the probative incident that has verified the presence of serious responsibilities and malfunctions as with the expert report ordered by the preliminary investigation judge – is undergoing a decisive delay in the start of the trial phase due to structural problems in the court of justice building of Bari; in fact, starting from the end of July, is being declared the stop of all criminal cases with not a few organizational problems for the Public Prosecutor’s Office, which is now without a proper building to celebrate the trials.

We will keep you up-to-date on upcoming developments in civil hearings and criminal cases.

LUCE VERDE PER IL PROCESSO CIVILE A BARI

A seguito della ultima udienza nella causa civile sul naufragio della NORMAN ATLANTIC presso il tribunale di Bari, il giudice aveva trattenuto il fascicolo in riserva sulle molte eccezioni sollevate dai legali di controparte per sostenere la nullità delle notifiche e della azione processuale; al contrario con ordinanza del giudice dott.ssa SIMONE RAFFAELLA, il Tribunale ha invece disposto procedersi oltre nel processo ed ha accolto la ns richiesta di estendere la domanda risarcitoria per 26 milioni di euro circa nei confronti della VISEMAR COSTRUZIONI, proprietaria dello scafo “nudo” della m/n Norman Atlantic, poi concessa in locazione a Visemar Navigazione e a sua volta da questa noleggiata alla compagnia greca ANEK AE. A seguito della citazione per la chiamata del terzo nel processo, anche la prima società sarà quindi tenuta in solido con le altre al risarcimento dei danni a favore dei passeggeri.

La prossima udienza per la prosecuzione del giudizio è fissata al 28/03/2019 09:30 PER CHIAMATA DEL TERZO.

Nel frattempo il giudizio penale – superata la fase dell’incidente probatorio che ha accertato la presenza di gravi responsabilità e malfunzionamenti con la perizia disposta dal giudice delle indagini preliminari – sta subendo un deciso ritardo nell’avvio della fase dibattimentale a causa dei problemi strutturali nel palazzo di giustizia di Bari; di fatto a partire da fine luglioo’è stato lo stop di tutte le cause penali e non pochi problemi organizzativi per la Procura, che si ritrova senza aule per celebrare i processi. Vi terremo aggiornati a breve sui prossimi sviluppi delle udienze civili e della causa penale.

Yesterday morning, in Bari Courthouse, the second hearing was held in the civil case brought by our legal team against ANEK AE and Visemar di Navigazione, following the filing of the supplementary memorandum ordered by the judge to specify in detail the damage items and factual elements for each passenger.

Once again the counterpart lawyers have raised numerous and insidious ritual and procedural exceptions, concerning the forfeiture – statute of limitations of the compensation action and rights recalling the Athens convention and the reg.CE 392/2009, in the attempt to guarantee a maximum limit to all compensation for passengers, as established by the European Community standard, while we immediatly replied on the lateness of these procedural exceptions, on the inapplicability of the CE limits to compensation in the presence (as in our case) of criminal offenses and serious fault / willful misconduct by the carrier (or its employees), requiring finally the judge to authorize the extension of the civil case also against another company of the visemar group (Visemar Trasporti Srl) as owner of the ship and responsible – economically jointly with the other two, for all compensation, in order to have a more adequate guarantee of solvency, taking into account the high request for compensation also for punitive damages that we proposed.

The judge decided to limit the topic of the discussion only on this last point, considered preliminary to others, and kept the case file in reserve in order to decide whether to authorize the call of Visemar Transport or not;in such eventuality the Court will set a deadline for notifying the deeds to this additional company, establishing a new hearing, or will set directly to the next hearing assigning to the parties an interlocutory term for the filing of replies on the further exceptions, as well as for the articulation of the investigations, filing of documents and certifications.

In the meantime the burned ship has been moved from the cruise dock to the entrance dock of the port of Bari, constituting a gloomy entry/exit ticket for all ships – but hopefully also a severe warning about accident prevention, where it will remain – always under seizure – pending the start of the criminal trial that may require further technical examination of the experts.

This last aspect, unfortunately, has undergone a further slowdown as the criminal court of Bari has recently been declared unfit and part of the hearing and the Public Prosecutor’s activities have moved temporarily under big “camping tents“, in conditions of extreme discomfort, and a recent government’s decree stopped all hearing until the end of the summer; however, we are confident that – after the conclusion of the preliminary investigations – the request for indictment for all the investigated is not far away, and this will certainly represent a decisive turning point for the rights and expectations of passengers and victims.