Following protracted negotiations, the underwriters to the Barracuda Tanker
Corporation on November 11th 1969 settled out of court for a total compensation
of £3 million to be divided equally between the United Kingdom (with
Guernsey) and France. Although the compensation received by the United
Kingdom represented only one-third of the cost of preventing and controlling
the oil-spill, without reference to the ecological damage sustained, the British
Government expressed satisfaction with the settlement – a sufficient testimony
to the parlous state of the property right situation at that time