Prestige oil spill causing great harm to the local fishing industry. The spill is the largest environmental disaster in the history of both Spain and Portugal. The amount of oil spilled was more than the "Exxon Valdez" incident and the toxicity considered higher, because of the higher water temperatures. In 2007 the Southern District of New York dismissed a 2003 lawsuit by the Kingdom of Spain against the American Bureau of Shipping, the international classification society which had certified the "Prestige" as in compliance with rules and laws, because ABS was a "person" per the International Convention on Civil Liability for Oil Pollution
Rayong oil spill study found that Corexit increases the toxicity of oil by 52 times. It can remain in the ecological food chain for many years and cause widespread and long-lasting health impacts." Official reports said of oil were spilled, but critics of the oil company and the government say that the spill was much larger and warned of health risks posed both by the spill and by the chemicals being used to disperse the oil. A higher estimate of the oil spill has been performed by Somporn Chuai-aree of Prince Songkhla University: "as low as or as high as ". This estimate