FELICITY ACE

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Court proceedings have commenced to determine cause of fire

The civil proceedings at the Braunschweig Regional Court has commended on July 2, in which the plaintiffs claim that a lithium-ion battery in a Porsche Taycan ignited spontaneously and caused the fire The ship's owner, the shipping company, and several marine hull insurance companies are demanding compensation for the damages associated with the fire and the sinking of the ship. The plaintiffs point out, among other things, that the VW subsidiary's vehicle in question was equipped with innovative batteries for which they were unprepared. The damage is said to be in the hundreds of millions of euros, although the exact amount is disputed between the parties. Volkswagen, however, denies that an electric car caused the devastating fire on Feb 16, 2022. According to the court, the defendant VW subsidiaries claim that the fire had a different cause and that the sinking of the ship could have been prevented with prudent action. Conciliation proceedings aimed at reaching an agreement between the parties failed. Therefore, the main oral hearing has now begun before the 12th Civil Division of the Braunschweig Regional Court. The presiding judge stated that the core question is whether a car started the fire or whether cars caught fire due to a fire. Parallel to the proceedings in Braunschweig, there is another civil case before the Stuttgart Regional Court. This case had been suspended while mediation was attempted in Braunschweig. The proceedings in Stuttgart are scheduled to resume with an oral hearing on Oct 20. The ship owners and five marine hull insurers are demanding damages from Porsche before the Stuttgart Regional Court. The claim involves approximately €29.1 million. Another case is also underway in Panama. The proceedings also address who had what knowledge. The issue is whether the shipping company should have taken better safety precautions or whether VW should have better informed the shipping company about potential hazards posed by the vehicles. Apparently, not everything ran smoothly on the ship. The fire extinguishing system, for example, is said to have malfunctioned. From VW's perspective, this could have slowed the fire and steered the ship to a port. Volkswagen's lawyers also question the safety procedures on board the ship. The plaintiffs, however, argue that the installed foam extinguishing system was not designed for fires involving electric car batteries anyway. Witnesses will be heard at a later date; experts will first have their say in the proceedings.

Civil lawsuit agains VW for loss of car carrier

A civil lawsuit began in Braunschweig on July 2 against the car manufacturer VW for damages resulting from the sinking of the 'felicityy Ace'. The ship's owner, the shipping company, and the marine hull insurers are demanding damages in the hundreds of millions before the Braunschweig Regional Court. They were blaming lithium-ion batteries in electric cars for the fire that led to the sinking of the "Felicity Ace' on March 1, 2022 approximately 170 kilometers off the coast of the Azores island of Faial. At the time of the accident, it was transporting almost 4,000 cars of various Volkswagen brands, including electric vehicles. The cause of the fire is disputed: According to the court, the plaintiffs claim that a self-igniting lithium-ion battery caused the fire. The defendants rejected this claim and also claimed that prudent action could have prevented the sinking of the ship. The parties also disagreed on the exact amount of damages.

Hearing at the Braunschweig Regional Court to start regarding ship loss

On July 2, 2025, proceedings into the sinking of the 'Felicity Ace' have been scheduled to begin at the Braunschweig Regional Court. The ship, fully loaded with thousands of luxury cars from Porsche, Audi, and others, was en route from the port of Emden to Davisville, when it caught fire on Feb 16, 2022, in the Atlantic south of the Azores. Around two weeks later, the "Felicity Ace" sank despite all firefighting and salvage attempts. The damage is estimated at around €400 million. The Volkswagen Group was particularly hard hit. Its destroyed vehicles had been worth around €200 million. The ship also carried lithium-ion batteries and other hazardous substances on board. There were many plug-in hybrids and even purely electric vehicles on board. The Captain quickly had claimed that batteries for the electric cars werwere the cause of the fire, Batteries from the VW subsidiary Porsche were particularly suspected. Porsche is said to have sent around 1,000 vehicles onto the ship. So far, the cause has never been determined – but the suspicion remained. Therefore, the ship's owner was now taking legal action in Braunschweig, together with the shipping company and marine hull insurers. There are a total of seven plaintiffs. The two defendants are companies of the Volkswagen Group. They, in turn, deny responsibility for the fire, claiming that If the crew had acted more prudently, the "Felicity Ace" would not have been lost.