When

June 10, 2025, 3 pm – 5 pm CET.

Speakers:

Rechtsanwältin Dr. Roda Verheyen: Liability of carbon majors "backwards looking"  – The decision of the Hamm Court of Appeal (Oberlandesgericht Hamm) in the case Lliuya vs RWE, Germany

Attorney Pim Heemskerk (Paulussen Advocaten, Maastricht):  Liability scope in climate cases – The case Milieudefensie vs ING Bank, Netherlands

Introduced by Prof. Delphine Misonne, UCLouvain, CEDRE, elni

Registration

Please register by mail before June 3, 2025 to delphine.misonne@uclouvain.be and you will receive the link for the webinar (Teams).

Background 

Nearly ten years after Saúl Luciano Lliuya filed his climate lawsuit against RWE supported by Germanwatch and the Stiftung Zukunftsfähigkeit, the Higher Regional Court in Hamm terminated the hearings and will render its decision on May 28, 2025. The Court will decide if large emitters can be held liable for damages caused by their greenhouse gas emissions. In the first instance, this was denied by the LG Essen, and other German lower courts found that civil law might not be applicable to forward looking applications on climate protection. The Court in Hamm has shown since its first order of November 30, 2017 that it is of a different opinion.

On March 28, 2025, environmental NGO Milieudefensie (Friends of the Earth Netherlands) issued a summons to the Dutch bank ING, arguing that ING is committing an 'unlawful act' due to violation of the legal societal duty of care under Article 6:162 of the Dutch Civil Code as a result of insufficient climate action. One of the main complaints in the summons is that ING does not set a GHG emissions reduction target for a large part of its emissions, including especially the 'scope 3' of financed emissions.

The impact of the decision on November 12, 2024 of the Court of Appeal in The Hague in the Shell case and the new Milieudefensie case against Shell, launched on May 13, 2025, will be discussed briefly too.