Iceland Appeal Court Backs Dismissal of Alcoa Case Against Eimskip, Samskip

Iceland's Court of Appeal has upheld the dismissal of Alcoa Fjarðaál's second tort claim against Eimskip, Samskip and their related companies, confirming a Reykjavík District Court judgment from June 2026 and leaving the aluminium producer without a live damages case against the two carriers.

The appeal ruling closes the second chapter of a dispute that has now run through two lawsuits in barely eighteen months. The defendants in the proceedings were Eimskipafélag Íslands, Eimskip Ísland, Samskip and Samskip Holding.

For the carriers, the decision removes a lingering legal overhang. Eimskip had maintained throughout that the claim was without merit and that the legal requirements for establishing liability under Icelandic tort law had not been satisfied.

What does the ruling change?

In practical terms, the Court of Appeal's decision changes nothing about the underlying dismissal — it simply leaves it in place. Alcoa filed the second case in December 2025, seeking recognition that the shipping companies were liable to pay compensation. Notably, the claim did not specify a compensation amount.

That omission matters. Without a quantified damages figure, the case rested on the question of liability alone — whether the carriers could be held responsible under tort law at all, before any argument about how much was owed.

Eimskip also argued that Alcoa had not provided established documentation supporting its alleged losses. That argument, combined with the tort-law threshold, formed the core of the defence in both rounds of litigation.

A second case over the same dispute

The second lawsuit concerned the same underlying matter as an earlier case that Alcoa suspended in May 2025. Alcoa also agreed to pay the litigation costs associated with that first case — a concession that preceded the December 2025 refiling by roughly seven months.

The sequence now reads as follows: an initial claim suspended in May 2025, with costs borne by Alcoa; a second claim filed in December 2025 without a specified compensation amount; a district court dismissal in June 2026; and finally the appeal court's confirmation of that dismissal.

For Eimskip and Samskip, two of Iceland's dominant domestic shipping operators, the outcome closes a procedural loop that has shadowed the companies through successive court rounds. Neither carrier now faces a pending damages claim from Alcoa Fjarðaál on this matter.

Why the tort-law threshold mattered

Icelandic tort law, like its Nordic counterparts, sets specific requirements for establishing liability, and Eimskip's defence centred squarely on that threshold. The company argued those requirements had not been met — a position vindicated first by the district court and now by the appellate bench.

The documentation argument reinforced the point. Eimskip contended that Alcoa had not produced established documentation backing its alleged losses, meaning that even if the liability question had been reached, the damages side of the claim rested on unproven ground.

For shippers and forwarders watching the case, the ruling underlines the evidentiary burden claimants carry in Icelandic tort proceedings: both a legally recognized basis for liability and documented, substantiated losses must be in place before a court will entertain compensation.

With the Court of Appeal's decision, the dismissal of the second claim stands definitively, and the legal dispute between Alcoa Fjarðaál and the two Icelandic carriers — at least in this form — reaches its end.