PARIS -- A French court Wednesday handed down a ruling in a landmark case against oil giant Total and other parties, accused of responsibility for one of France's worst environmental disasters.

The Erika tanker was carrying 30,000 tons of heavy fuel oil when it broke in two and sank off the Brittany coast on December 12, 1999, polluting a large stretch of coastline and killing tens of thousands of seabirds.

Here are some of the world's worst oil spills and the legal follow-up to them.

- Amoco Cadiz, March 16, 1978: The Liberian supertanker sinks off the western tip of Brittany, France, dumping 230,000 tons of crude oil and polluting 320 kilometers (200 miles) of coastline.

In 1992, after 14 years of proceedings, the Amoco oil company is ordered to pay a total of 1.3 billion French francs (198 million euros, or 297 million dollars at today's exchange rate) in damages to the French state and local victims.

- Exxon Valdez, March 24, 1989: The Exxon Valdez spills 37,000 tons of oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound after running aground on a reef.

On January 28, 2004, the world's biggest oil company, Exxonmobil of the United States, is told by an Alaska court to pay 4.5 billion dollars to victims of the oil spill. The amount is reduced to 2.5 billion on appeal in December 2006, with 2.25 billion dollars in interest.

- Erika, December 12, 1999: The Italian-owned ship, registered in Malta and chartered by the French oil company TotalFina, breaks in two off France's northwestern coast, dumping 20,000 tons of heavy fuel oil into the ocean. Some 400 kilometers of coastline are polluted, killing or injuring an estimated 300,000 birds.

- Prestige, November 19, 2002: the Liberian-registered tanker Prestige breaks up and sinks off northwestern Spain, spewing out 64,000 tons of heavy fuel oil into the waters, fouling thousands of kilometers (miles) along the Atlantic coast of France, Spain and Portugal. Legal proceedings are expected to start in 2008.