The Italian Sea Group (TISG), which denied earlier in the week a report that it had filed papers in a Sicilian court stating that it could be seeking reputational damages against the owner of the sunken yacht Bayesian, is now reported to have sacked its legal team.
Italian paper La Nazione reported last Saturday September 21st that Tommaso Bertuccelli, a lawyer working with TISG, had filed suit seeking €222m on the grounds that the actions of the owner could have caused TISG reputational damage. TISG rubbished the report, stating that “the Italian Sea Group … strongly denies the claims published in La Nazione regarding a legal action following the Bayesian tragedy. Although TISG has given a generic mandate to the lawyers named in the article, no legal representative of the company has examined, signed or authorised any writ of summons”.
TISG is now reported to have sacked its legal team. TISG says that Bertuccelli filed the suit without the company’s knowledge or approval. It continued to maintain that “no legal representative of the company has examined, signed or authorised any writ of summons”. TISG denied that it was seeking legal damages.
The company said: “The Italian Sea Group S.p.A. (TISG) clarifies to have instructed its lawyers – who on September 20th 2024 had filed at the Termini Imerese Court the writ of summons mentioned in the news in recent days – to withdraw the said summons on September 21st 2024, at 2.01 pm by certified email. TISG informs that it has therefore terminated all their engagements.”
The papers which TISG has since disavowed reportedly named not only Revtom, the Isle of Man company that owned the superyacht, but also named the Bayesian’s captain James Cutfield, two other crew members, the yacht management company Camper & Nicholsons, and Angela Bacares, the widow of Mike Lynch. Ms Bacares survived the sinking, but her husband and daughter died. She is listed as Revtom’s sole shareholder.
TISG’s CEO Giovanni Constantino stated within hours of the boat’s sinking that the crew must have been at fault, because the Bayesian was “unsinkable”. This was before any official investigation had begun. He told the media: “I imagine the crew is going through the worst moment of their lives. However, something in the way they handled the situation did not work. There was a chain of human errors.”
Costantino’s comments caused immediate anger, with a close friend of Lynch’s family telling UK newspaper The Times that “the Italian Sea Group should be ashamed. Giovanni Costantino is a disgrace, desperately trying to shift blame. He rushed to the media before all the bodies had even been recovered, showing his lack of decency.”
The 56 metre Perini Navi-built sailing yacht Bayesian capsized during a violent storm before dawn on August 19th, with 22 people on board. Seven of them died – one the vessel’s chef, who was found drowned shortly after the incident, and six of them passengers who were trapped below decks, running out of oxygen in air pockets that had formed during the boat’s rapid capsizing.
The seven people who lost their lives in the disaster were Mike Lynch, his 18-year-old daughter Hannah Lynch; Clifford Chance lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife, American jewellery designer Neda Morvillo; Hiscox chair Jonathan Bloomer and his wife, Judy Bloomer; and chef Recaldo Thomas.
The “rogue” legal action accused Ms Bacares and members of the crew of contributing to the sinking of the yacht due to alleged human error. The lawsuit also cited financial losses, including the withdrawal of a contract with a prominent fashion house.
A separate criminal investigation is currently being conducted by Italian prosecutors. They are examining the circumstances of the sinking and whether the captain and / or two crew members were culpable in any way for the disaster. No guilt is implied by the investigation, and formal charges may not necessarily follow.