Journal of Business Law and Ethics

Nuclear Insurance Pools: Does the Horizontal Cooperation leads to the Market Foreclosure?
Laura Rimšaitė

Abstract
After nuclear energy became the source of electricity generation, the need to solve civil liability and financial coverage questions came at the outset. Third party nuclear liability is governed by Paris Convention and Vienna Convention. Responsibility for the safe nuclear power plant exploitation is exclusively derived to the nuclear power plant operator, however in case of an accident operator sole is not capable of providing full financial coverage for the damages. Therefore the private insurance sector has to cover nuclear risks which currently have a low probability that is difficult to estimate but its foreseen damages are of an extreme magnitude and the unprecedented nature in the event that it occurs. It is difficult to evaluate accurate estimates due to the absence of previous experience and statistical data for third party liability. Nuclear insurance pools separately existed in the EU member states. Referring to certain restrictions limiting to the obligation for operator’s ability to adhere only to national nuclear insurance pools an interference with EU competition law occurs. However there is no unified EU policy for the one core insurance pool which would be capable of providing related compensation in the event of nuclear accident.

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