Owners of Fishing Trawler Ordered to Pay Virgin Media £346k Over Cable Break UPDATE

The High Court of Ireland has ruled that the owners of an Irish-registered fishing trawler, MV The Lida Suzanna, should pay the wholesale division of broadband provider Virgin Media some $397,514 (£346k) to cover the cost of repairing a key undersea fibre cable that runs between the UK and Ireland.

The 218.7km long cable in question is Sirius South, which was originally deployed in 1998 by NTL (they later became part of Virgin Media after the merger with Telewest) and contains 48 optical fibre strands. Virgin also operates a second cable on a similar route called Sirius North, which affords them some redundancy should one of the two links end up being damaged.

Sadly, cable breaks are not uncommon on subsea routes. Most such damage occurs due to accidents by deep sea fishing trawlers, as well as ships dragging their anchor over them or even rare cases of deliberate sabotage. Suffice to say that a whole industry exists to repair such cables, but it often takes a few days or weeks, and a fair bit of money, to fix serious damage.

Back in June 2024 we reported that Virgin Media had decided to sue the owners of the Lida Suzanna for €800k (i.e. mostly reflecting the cost of repairs) after they were accused of damaging Sirius South (here). The case had actually been filed all the way back in 2018, which itself followed a few years after the incident took place on 26th January 2015 at approximately 11:41am.

The owners of the trawler argued that the location was an “area of fishing ground established centuries past” and that they were doing nothing more than the lawful exploitation of fishing rights. The owners also claimed that Virgin Media had no entitlement to expect or demand that fishing be modified, or stopped, just because it laid a cable across the same area.

On the flip side, Virgin Media argued that shipping regulations require such vessels to carry publications that would have alerted the vessel’s owners to the location of subsea cables, and that there was also an alleged failure to ensure the skipper and/or crew were adequately aware of the location of such cables.

The presiding Judge, Mr. Justice Denis McDonald, yesterday ruled that the owners of the fishing trawler were “negligent” and that Virgin Media is “entitled to recover from the defendants the costs of repairing the damage to the cable“, which was assessed to reflect the sum of $397,514.02 (£346k) together with the additional sum of £9,000.

Mr. Justice Denis McDonald said:

“I have come to the conclusion that the plaintiff is the owner of the cable and that the damage to the cable that was sustained in the period around 11:41hrs on 26th January 2015 was caused by the Lida Suzanna. I have also come to the conclusion that the defendants were negligent and in breach of their duty of care by dredging over the cable and that the Lida Suzanna ought have hauled its gear before crossing the cable.

As a consequence, the plaintiff is entitled to recover from the defendants the costs of repairing the damage to the cable which I have assessed in the sum of $397,514.02 together with the additional sum of £9,000. There will be judgment against the defendants in favour of the plaintiff for the euro equivalent of those sums but I refuse to award interest to the plaintiff under s. 22 of the 1981 Act.”

The judge ordered both parties to liaise with each other and agree the euro amount for which judgment is to be given and to discuss the issue of costs, which must be done by noon on 7th October 2025.

A Virgin Media spokesperson said last year: “As a business with millions of customers who rely on fast and reliable connectivity, we hope that through taking this action, third parties will be better aware of the cost that can be involved and disruption it can cause when our cables are damaged.”

Virgin has previously also filed a similar case against the MV Willie Joe trawler, which was settled back in 2022.

UPDATE 3:29pm

We’ve had an updated comment from Virgin Media.

A Virgin Media spokesperson said:

“We brought this claim to recover the significant costs we incurred repairing a subsea cable damaged by a trawler and publicise the dangers of trawling around these cables. We are pleased that the court supports our position and has ruled in our favour.

We hope this serves as a reminder that commercial vessels must avoid damaging subsea cables as doing so can lead to significant costs, disruption and put fisherman’s lives at risk.”