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the national court may regard the seller of those hydrocarbons and charterer of the ship carrying them as a producer of that waste within the meaning of Article 1(b) of Directive 75/442, as amended by Decision 96/350, and thereby as a ‘previous holder’ for the purposes of applying the first part of the second indent of Article 15 of that directive, if that court, in the light of the elements which it alone is in a position to assess, reaches the conclusion that that seller-charterer contributed to the risk that the pollution caused by the shipwreck would occur, in particular if he failed to take measures to prevent such an incident, such as measures concerning the choice of ship;

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if it happens that the cost of disposing of the waste produced by an accidental spillage of hydrocarbons at sea is not borne by the International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund, or cannot be borne because the ceiling for compensation for that accident has been reached, and that, in accordance with the limitations and/or exemptions of liability laid down, the national law of a Member State, including the law derived from international agreements, prevents that cost from being borne by the shipowner and/or the charterer, even though they are to be regarded as ‘holders’ within the meaning of Article 1(c) of Directive 75/442, as amended by Decision 96/350, such a national law will then, in order to ensure that Article 15 of that directive is correctly transposed, have to make provision for that cost to be borne by the producer of the product from which the waste thus spread came. In accordance with the ‘polluter pays’ principle, however, such a producer cannot be liable to bear that cost unless he has contributed by his conduct to the risk that the pollution caused by the shipwreck will occur.