Mermaid Marine has settled legal claims with four plaintiffs in the United States over a storm tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico last year.
The Perth-based marine services firm said today that neither it nor its insurers were required to contribute to the settlements.
The amount of the settlements was not disclosed. The victims had sued Mermaid and two US-based companies for $US34.5 million.
The claims had arisen over the alleged abandonment of 10 crew members of Trinity Lifeboats' Trinity II vessel, by Mermaid' Vigilance during Hurricane Nate last year.
The crew members had abandoned ship after it was damaged by the storm, and the Vigilance, which was taking part in the exploration project with Trinity and geophysical services company Geokinetics, did not make a rescue attempt.
Four crew members died in the tragedy.
Mermaid maintained the crew of the Vigilance made the “correct decision” to sail for shelter and protect the lives of its 37 passengers and crew, rather than attempt a rescue.
"The loss of life at sea in this incident was a terrible tragedy but MMA continues to support the actions of the master of the Mermaid Vigilance who had to make the difficult but correct decision to protect the lives of the 37 crew and passengers on board the vessel," Mermaid said in a statement.
Also today, Mermaid said the four plaintiffs it reached settlement with had also filed a motion in Galveston’s US District Court with withdraw an order for Mermaid to pay the monthly charter fees for Vigilance into a trust account.
“MMA expects that the motion to dismiss the writs of attachment will be granted shortly, after which Geokinetics will be free to release the previously attached funds to MMA," the company’s statement said.
Mermaid said confidential settlement negotiations were proceeding with the remaining five Trinity II crew members.
“MMA looks forward to the resolution of those negotiations.”
Mermaid shares were up 1.7 per cent, to $3.04 at 1.30pm, WST.
