Tuesday's decision by the Paris Cour de Cassation to uphold a 2008 ruling over the disaster will be a blow to the French supermajor which has already forked out heavily for clean-up operations.
Total was found guilty in 2008 for the damage caused when the Erika, an ageing oil tanker it had chartered, broke apart and sank in a winter storm off Brittany in 1999, spilling 20,000 tonnes of crude oil.
