The Ship-source Oil Pollution Fund (SOPF) recently implemented Decisia on its public website to improve access to its letters, decisions, and assessments. All offers of compensation issued in 2019 were initially made available. More recent offers will be published soon.
SOPF produces short summaries for many of its documents and make them easy to search with a wide range of metadata fields specific to their domain of expertise such as by ship name, incident date, and location of damages. Offers of compensation include all the reasons why a specific amount is offered by the Fund. This administrative decision is made based on the law, the facts, and the evidence submitted.
SOPF has been created to facilitate the indemnification of claims for ship-source pollution in Canadian waters while protecting the taxpayer. Canada’s compensation regime is based on the fundamental principle that the shipowner is primarily liable for oil pollution damage caused by the ship — that is, the polluter pays principle.