The specious ‘corporate veil’

The world's worst industrial disaster, in Bhopal in 1984, left an estimated 8000 dead within a few days of the gas leak. Over subsequent years, about 25,000 have died due to toxic-gas-related diseases, and the lethal effects of the gas leak, however, are still being felt even 25 years on, in the shape of groundwater contamination. H Rajan Sharma is an international lawyer practicing in New York. He is currently lead counsel in a class-action litigation against Union Carbide concerning environmental pollution caused by its Bhopal plant. In the weeks prior to the 25th anniversary of the gas leak, Sharma discussed the case with Himal by e-mail.

In 1999, you filed the class-action suit against Union Carbide Corporation (which had been bought by Dow Chemical in 2001), seeking damages for environmental contamination and for the clean-up of the Bhopal plant, which polluted sub-surface groundwater. What are the key contentions of the suit, and the current position?
The key contentions are that Union Carbide transferred technology to its Indian subsidiary, Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL), of the kind it knew would cause an environmental-pollution problem at the Bhopal location. Our case also contends that Union Carbide was involved in a defective and incomplete clean-up of the plant site after its closure in 1984 until at least 1994. This caused or further contributed to the pollution threat posed by the plant, including the creation of a massive landfill containing thousands of tonnes of toxic waste in the area of the plant's solar evaporation ponds.