A London-based company is facing a £100 million compensation claim over allegations that it arranged to dump 400 tons of toxic waste in Côte d’Ivoire causing the deaths of ten people and injuring up to a hundred thousand.

Lawyers for some of the claimants began legal proceedings in the High Court for personal injury against Trafigura, which chartered a tanker that was carrying the waste product.

Residents in Abidjan, the biggest port in Côte d’Ivoire, said that they had suffered sickness and nausea from exposure to the chemicals. The fallout from the disaster led to violent street protests and a temporary change of government.

The claim states that in August the supertanker Probo Koala docked in Abidjan. The claimants allege that Trafigura contracted with a local company, Tommy, to dispose of the waste. It then dumped the waste in open air sites and into the waterways of the capital, it is alleged.

A spokesman for Leigh Day, the legal firm acting on behalf of the claimants, said yesterday that the consequences for the local population had been disastrous.

Martyn Day, a partner with the firm, said: “This has been a disaster on a monumental scale. We hold Trafigura fully to account for all the deaths and injuries that have resulted from the dumping of their waste. Although the events took place thousands of miles away, it is right that this British company is made to account for its actions by the British courts and made to pay British levels of damages for what happened.”

Trafigura has set up its own independent inquiry into the events that led to the disaster.

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