Carbide ordered to pay Bhopal victims

The presiding judge in the litigation against Union Carbide in Bhopal, India, has ordered the company to donate $270 million as an interim sum for the relief of victims of the December 1984 chemical disaster. Carbide reacted quickly but tentatively to the decision by Judge M. W. Deo in the central Indian city last week. "I haven't seen the text of the order," said Bud G. Holman, attorney for Carbide. "But we've long been of the view that there is no basis whatever in the law for any award of interim compensation." He said such judgments must be based on evidence presented through trial procedures. Holman also said that Carbide already had made offers of interim relief, as opposed to outright compensation, and that local measures to help relieve the plight of the gas victims had already been deemed adequate by Indian authorities. So, drawing a legal line between relief and compensation, he said relief ...