A French appeals court yesterday upheld key elements of a verdict against oil giant Total over a disastrous 1999 oil spill in a ruling with wide implications for the global oil industry's environmental responsibilities.

Total was found guilty in 2008 for the damage caused when the Erika, the aging oil tanker registered in Malta, it had chartered, broke apart and sank in a winter storm off Brittany in 1999, spilling 20,000 tonnes of crude oil.

An oil slick covered 400 km of French coastline, killing thousands of birds and marine animals.

"In failing to apply precautionary rules, Total was at fault for imprudence in relation to the causality of the shipwreck," the aappeals court judgment said.

The court confirmed the criminal responsibility of Total, which was fined €375,000 in the first case, as well as that of three other defendants, who were also fined.

The ruling also upheld the legal notion that damage to the general environment is on a par with economic harm to individuals or corporations for which companies must pay compensation.

"It means in future we will have the ability to assign a value to living things that have no commercial worth," said Allain Bougrain-Dubourg, president of the League for the Protection of Birds. "It is a considerable advance. They won't be able to behave tomorrow as they behaved before."

Contrary to the earlier ruling, yesterday's judgment did not assign civil responsibility to Total, meaning it would in theory not be forced to pay damages and interest to victims in the case. But it said that the group could not reclaim payments it had already made.

The 2008 ruling ordered Total to pay €192 million in damages to environmental groups, local governments and others involved in the clean-up operation, and the bulk of this has already been paid.

Yesterday, the appeals court raised the sum to €200 million but ordered the surplus over the original award to be paid by Rina, the Italian shipping certification body that gave the Erika its certificate of seaworthiness.

Total can appeal against the ruling in the Cour de Cassation, the highest court in the French judiciary.

Despite lodging an appeal against the 2008 ruling, Total made a deal with 37 of the plaintiffs after the first trial and has paid them €170 million.

It had already spent €200 million on pumping the remainder of the crude oil from the wreck of the Erika.