Contingent liability

Contingent liability under Superfund is assured to be no more than original disposal cost. 

Section 6.2.3 is called Total Cost Assessment Looking at All the Costs Involved with a Decision. Traditional decision-making typically focuses on direct and indirect costs that appear on the balance sheet. The TCA model defines three additional cost types, contingent liabilities and internal and external intangibles. A methodology for developing total costs related to environmental impacts is discussed. 

Environmental expenditure no specific reference is made in the CER or annual report to environmental capital or operating expenditure. In the section of the annual report on contingent liabilities it is stated that in 1999 Norsk Hydro spent NOK 10 million for corrective environmental measures. 

Need to consider contingency liability and insurance implications... 

Under these four assumptions, the price of an asset can be described in present value terms relative to the value of the risk-free cash deposit M, and, in fact, the price is described as a Q-martingale. A European-style contingent liability with maturity date t is therefore valued at time 0 under the risk-neutral probability as... 

Contingent liability costs Less tangible costs... 

The future and contingent liability costs (e.g., liabilities for persOTial injury and property damage)... 

The moral is those contingent liabilities of poor performance should be weighed against the cost differences between equipment supplies and the relative confidence of achieving reliable design performance and expert support. 

C. The Necessity of Discretionary Liability Limitation in the Case of Strict Liability. Strict or direct liability is a no-fault liability. However, it is much more than a mere contingent liability which would solely require a causative connection between the operation of a technical product and the occurrence of the damage in order to be able to establish liability. Strict or direct liability which is all-encompassing is restricted by assessing points of view which, besides the already-mentioned upper limit, include, in general ... 

Type III Costs Contingent costs Liabilities (e.g., clean up) Lawsuits Damage to resources Accidents... 

Both removal and remedial actions may be carried out at the same site. To accomplish these tasks, CERCLA has given cleanup authority to U.S. EPA, has established the Hazardous Substance Response Trust Fund (Superfund) to finance the remedial actions at CERCLA sites, has initiated a procedure for the emergency response to accidental spills, and has imposed cleanup liability on those responsible. The National Contingency Plan (NCP) was developed in 1982 and in 1985 as the regulatory framework to guide these responses. 

Some analysts believe the market for information about the health risks of chemical exposure will be not only inequitable but also inefficient. One efficiency concern is that individuals would be overburdened by the sheer number of remote health contingencies that they must consider, even though most exposures will not result in disease. Bureaucratic regulation and liability rules are institutional responses to these concerns. 

Acquiring products has a number of implications beyond those of taking a licence. When a company acquires a product it also acquires any and all liabilities already associated with that product. These liabilities may include past damages inflicted on patients, environmental impacts and contingent issues associated with third-party contracts. Conversely, the value represented in the acquisition of a product lies in obtaining the full value from its revenue streams and having full control of any development issues. 

From the start, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been inescapably involved in this problem through the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and earlier legislation, but since 1979 it became evident that EPA s normal resources were quite inadequate to deal with the overall problem in a timely way. Therefore in late 1980 the Comprehensive Environmental Compensation and Liability Act of 1980 (the Superfund Act) was passed. The Act revises a more limited National Contingency Plan to permit response to hazardous substances and to provide extra funds for EPA to tackle the problem. 

CERCLA also established prohibitions and requirements related to closed and abandoned waste sites and provided liability for persons responsible for releases of hazardous wastes at those sites. CERCLA amended the National Oil and Hazardous Substances Contingency Plan [National Contingency Plan (NCP)] to provide a regulatory blueprint for federal response to releases of hazardous substances, pollutants, and contaminants. 

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