January 26, 2012 6:32 PM

U.K. Firms Take Roles in Costa Concordia Disaster

Posted by Tom Huddleston Jr.

As the death toll from the wreck of the cruise ship Costa Concordia off the coast of Italy mounts, law firms have begun to land roles for both the boat's parent company and the victims of the disaster.

The number of confirmed dead from the January 13 crash hit 16 people this week, and at least 16 people are missing. The ship was carrying about 4,200 people when it sank after hitting rocks close to the shore of an island near Tuscany.

Herbert Smith confirmed to The Am Law Daily that it is advising Carnival, the parent company of the Costa Concordia operator Costa Crociere. Legal Week reported Monday that the firm's insurance team in Hong Kong is taking the lead.

Legal Week reports, meanwhile, that U.K. firms Clyde & Co., Norton Rose, and Ince & Co. also are advising Carnival in various capacities, though none of those firms would immediately confirm their specific roles. Norton Rose has advised Carnival on shipping finance matters in the past, according to the firm's Web site. That work included a 2009 financing related to two cruise liners. A Norton Rose spokeswoman declined The Am Law Daily's request for comment.

London-based travel litigation partner Clive Garner of Irwin Mitchell is leading a team from the firm representing more than 20 crash survivors. A spokeswoman for the firm confirmed that Garner's team is representing passengers and crew members from the United Kingdom and Europe, and is working with lawyers in the United States and Europe.

Garner told Legal Week that the number of survivors who have contacted the firm continues to grow, and that he is working with sister firm in Spain, IM Abogados, as well as other lawyers in Europe. "The running aground of the Costa Concordia was terrible enough, but this was compounded by the woeful management of the evacuation of the vessel," Garner told Legal Week.

The management of the ship, both leading up to the crash and during the subsequent evacuation, has come in for heavy criticism. Costa Concordia captain Francesco Schettino, who is currently under house arrest, faces possible charges of manslaughter, shipwreck, and abandoning ship, according to CNN. Schettino is being represented by Italian attorney Bruno Leporatti.

Costa Crociere has taken the position that Schettino misled the company about the scale of the crash when he first called a corporate crisis center. But Costa Cruciere chief executive Pier Luigi Foschi also admitted to a Senate committee in Rome that the company did encourage ship captains to sail close to shore in order to entertain passengers—a details that Schettino has used in his own defense, The Vancouver Sun reports.

The Sun adds that one of multiple possible class actions may be filed by Italian attorney Giulia Bongiorno on behalf of roughly 30 victims of the crash. Bongiorno is a criminal lawyer who recently served as defense counsel to U.S. exchange student Amanda Knox's Italian boyfriend and codefendant, Raffaele Sollecito. Her work in that highly publicized case, including the now famous "Jessica Rabbit defense," led to the reversal of the pair's murder convictions.

In the U.S., Manhattan-based personal injury firms Napoli Bern Ripka Shkolnik and Proner & Proner, in collaboration with Italian consumer group Codacons, say they are preparing two potential class actions against Costa Crocier and Carnival on behalf of passengers and crew members.

Marc Bern, a senior partner at Napoli Bern, told The Am Law Daily that the suits will be filed in Miami, where Carnival is based, by Friday.

Bern says the plaintiffs will demand compensation that could range from $150,000 to millions of dollars apiece. The combined damages sought will be "far in excess of a billion," he adds.

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