Cattle buyer and seller trade lawsuits over fatal shipment
Tuesday 10th November 2026 on 16:30 in
Austria
A civil trial over cattle that died during a shipment from Uruguay to Turkey resumed at the Regional Court in Krems on Tuesday, with the buyer and seller each seeking millions of euros from the other, ORF reported.
The vessel Spiridon II carried almost 3,000 cattle in autumn 2025 in a transport organised by Agro Breeding GmbH, based in Zwettl. Numerous animals died on board. After the ship reached Turkey, the cattle were reportedly barred from disembarking because some permits were missing. They were unloaded in Libya after spending weeks aboard.
The buyer, Germany-based EGE Genetik Viehhandel GmbH, is seeking the repayment of about 1.85 million euros, saying it suffered financial losses. It argued that permits for some animals were missing and that the cattle were at a more advanced stage of pregnancy when they were loaded than had been agreed.
Agro Breeding disputes the buyer’s account. It filed a counterclaim on 5 October seeking 1.34 million euros, the outstanding balance for the cattle. The company argued that risk passed to EGE when the animals were handed to the carrier in Uruguay, and that EGE and its Turkish business partners were responsible for the ship’s detention, the animals’ suffering and the resulting losses.
The Krems public prosecutor’s office ended its criminal investigation into suspected animal cruelty in October, Agro Breeding’s lawyer, Gerhard Rößler, told the APA news agency. The prosecutor’s office said negligence in selecting the shipping company could not be considered a direct cause of the conditions on board, according to Rößler. Several people were questioned at Tuesday’s civil hearing, and the case was not expected to conclude.
The Animal Welfare Foundation and The Marker, an association focused on animal and environmental protection, criticised the circumstances of the shipment and called for those responsible to be held to account. The Animal Welfare Foundation also called for a ban on transporting live animals by ship and on live-animal exports from the EU.
The Association Against Animal Factories demonstrated outside the court against long-distance animal transports. Vier Pfoten said the companies were focused on assigning financial responsibility to each other rather than on the animals’ suffering.