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28 September 2025 - 09:05
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October 14, 2025 - 10:11
Six years after the death of VT, a former employee of the Kuwait refinery (formerly Mobil Oil Italiana), a historic ruling has been made. The Labour Judge of the Rome Tribunal has ascertained the company's responsibility for the man's death, ordering it to compensate the family with over 1,5 million euros. VT, who passed away in December 2016 at the age of 70, had been the victim of pleural mesothelioma, a form of cancer caused by prolonged exposure to asbestos.
For 22 years, the worker had worked in the Naples refinery, first as a fireman and then as a boiler and plant operator in the thermoelectric power plant. Inail had already recognized the occupational nature of the disease, and now justice has also established that the refinery had not adopted adequate safety measures to protect workers from“killer asbestos”.
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In the appeal presented by the family, it was highlighted how VT had been exposed to asbestos dust and fibres. "directly, indirectly and through environmental contamination", working in close contact with pipes, gaskets and cables containing asbestos, often alongside maintenance technicians who handled these materials without ordering the shutdown of the plants. Furthermore, the man had not been provided with protective masks nor were there extractor hoods in the work environments.
The sentence awarded compensation of 444.787 euros to the family, plus approximately 300 thousand euros each to the widow and three children. Lawyer Ezio Bonanni, president of the National Observatory Asbestos (ONA) and the family's lawyer, defined this ruling “a crucial step” for the recognition of asbestos risk in the petrochemical sector, an industry that has a high incidence of related diseases, such as mesothelioma, lung cancer and laryngeal cancer. "This ruling should push institutions to accelerate the cleanup of the Naples SIN (Site of National Interest).", declared Bonanni, underlining the urgency of securing the contaminated areas to avoid further tragedies.
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