Chemical Spill Response – who is liable?
By Patti Garland
Does farming out chemical spill response leave you open to legal issues?
Life is full of questions when it comes to chemical spill response. Some are large and others are small. Some are essential and others are trivial. Some of the questions are just passing curiosities that we ponder once and never return to.
And then there are those chemical spill response questions that can provide the theme for the future of a business. The one we are looking at here is whether a company should farm out emergency chemical spill response or should they do it in-house?
There isn’t any tip-toeing quietly toward the answer. Some will jump at the answer.
But when it comes to emergency chemical spill response and how it is handled, a company can’t avoid finding just the right answer.
Try as we might, there is no escaping the bottom line and that is who has the legal liability?
Some companies think if they farm out their emergency spill response to another company it adds a layer of legal protection. But does it?
It doesn’t matter how many layers of protection there are or how big of a protective pyramid a company builds, the legal liability always lands at the tip of the spear.
So here’s the point to ponder: if there is a chemical accident and your company doesn’t have the tools available to respond because you farmed out your chemical spill response, does it leave you open to legal issues?
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