Fuel Supplier to Pay $110 Million to Railway Victims Fund

By Patrick Fitzgerald 

Montreal Maine & Atlantic Railway Ltd., the company behind a deadly 2013 oil train derailment in Quebec, Monday has another $110 million for its fund to help compensate the victims of the crash.

World Fuels Services, the company that owned the oil shipment, said it has agreed to pay into the compensation fund established for the victims of the derailment. The oil supplier's contribution brings the amount raised for the victims' fund to $345 million (C$431,500,000).

MM&A sought the protection of U.S. and Canadian courts in August 2013 after being hit with an avalanche of personal-injury, wrongful-death and environmental claims following the derailment of an unmanned train carrying crude oil from North Dakota's Bakken region, which leveled the town of Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, and killed 47 people.

The bankruptcy professionals administering the fund praised WFS on Monday "for its good corporate citizenship" in agreeing to the settlement. The deal leaves Canadian Pacific Railway, which transported the oil to Montreal, as the sole defendant not to settle.

"We only wish CP were showing similar citizenship," said Robert J. Keach, the court-appointed trustee overseeing MM&A's U.S. bankruptcy case.

Canadian Pacific declined to comment.

Government agencies, including the Province of Quebec, the city of Lac-Mégantic and the Canadian government, are in line for the largest share of the funds, followed by the families of those who died and were injured by the crash.

The 2013 accident, which Canadian regulators blamed on MM&A's alleged "weak safety culture" as well as inadequate government oversight, has spurred regulators in both Canada and the U.S. to push for stricter rules governing oil transport.

Sara Randazzo

contributed to this article.

Write to Patrick Fitzgerald at [e-mail]

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