New | France fines Hong Kong shipping firm over top executive’s death
Courtenay Allan died in 2003 after plunging six floors down a lift shaft onboard the container ship OOCL Montreal when lift doors inexplicably opened without the lift present
Orient Overseas Container Line, a shipping company controlled by the family of former Hong Kong chief executive Tung Chee-hwa, has been fined 50,000 euros (HK$530,000) over the death of a top executive in France 11 years ago.
The firm, one of the world’s biggest container shippers and a unit of Hong Kong-listed parent Orient Overseas (International), was found guilty on Wednesday by a criminal court in the French port of Le Havre of involuntary manslaughter over the July 3, 2003 death of Courtenay Allan.
The ruling followed a long campaign for justice by Allan’s three sons, Ben, Hayden and Tristan Allan.
“After 11 years of campaigning for justice, we are pleased that OOCL have finally been held responsible for our father’s premature death,” they said in a statement.
The statement described the verdict as “heartening” after years of investigation and calling in specialist engineers to reconstruct what happened.
“It shouldn’t have taken this long, and it didn’t need to, had OOCL done the right thing and accepted responsibility,” it said.
Allan, 53, died after plunging six floors down a lift shaft onboard the container ship OOCL Montreal when the lift doors inexplicably opened without the lift present.
