P.M. BRIEFING : India Court to Rule in Carbide Suit
India’s Supreme Court said today it would rule next week on petitions challenging a law under which Union Carbide Corp. was allowed to pay only $470 million in compensation to victims of the Bhopal gas disaster.
Several petitions have challenged the validity of a 1985 act under which the government assumed the sole right to fight for compensation on behalf of nearly half a million claimants. Nearly 2,000 people were killed and 200,000 injured when poisonous gas leaked out of a pesticides plant in Bhopal in central India on Dec. 3, 1984. About 1,400 more victims have died since then.
The government claimed $3.3 billion on behalf of the victims but agreed to the $470-million settlement last February.
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