• AG yet to file final compensation claim
• SOC alleges AG’s Dept. silent on matter 
• Only interim claims received so far 

The Government has allocated $ 10 million so far to cover legal expenses incurred by the Attorney General’s (AG) Department in the MV X-Press Pearl case filed in a Singaporean court last year to claim damages resulting from the ship disaster in May 2021.

However, despite the allocation, the AG’s Department is yet to submit the final compensation figure for the damages.

Marine Environment Protection Authority (MEPA) Chairman Asela Rekawa said that a final figure of the compensation to be claimed by Sri Lanka was yet to be confirmed. 

“The final report is still being completed by the Australian consultant. The final legal claim will only be filed after that is submitted. A sum of $ 10 million has been allocated for the AG’s Department to cover these legal fees and consultancy charges,” Rekawa told The Sunday Morning. 

The President’s Office stated last year that the original case pertaining to the claims action of the X-Press Pearl incident had been filed in the High Court of Singapore, naming the AG of Sri Lanka as the claimant, on 25 April 2023. 

However, allegations have arisen against the AG’s Department over the lack of updates regarding the matter since.

Parliament Sectoral Oversight Committee (SOC) on Environment, Natural Resources, and Sustainable Development Chairman MP Ajith Mannapperuma told The Sunday Morning that despite multiple inquiries, the AG’s Department was yet to update them regarding the legal proceedings. 

“Even MEPA doesn’t know about the legal case as it is the AG’s Department that is handling it,” he said. 

A statement by Parliament in January notes that the SOC had stated that there was no proper coordination between the agencies, including the AG’s Department, regarding the X-Press Pearl case. 

“MEPA officials said that although they had asked the AG’s Department in a letter about the activities of the expert committee appointed by MEPA and its future needs, they had not received a proper reply. However, the officials said that they had received information from the Ministry of Justice that an international, independent expert committee would be appointed to continue the assessment of the damages. 

“As a result, the MEPA expert committee has not made a firm decision on how to proceed further. Also, they pointed out that it is a problem that their institution is not aware of the work being carried out in this regard by the AG’s Department,” the statement said. 

An expert committee appointed by MEPA headed by Prof. Ajith de Alwis has calculated a compensation figure of about $ 6.5 billion, which was forwarded to the AG’s Department last year. Prof. de Alwis told The Sunday Morning that since then, they had not been involved in the process. 

“We submitted two reports. In our second report, we calculated a compensation value of about $ 6.5 billion, but that still does not cover all aspects of the damages. There were 35 aspects related to the damages but this figure covers only about eight. It especially does not cover the damages caused by the plastics (which were onboard the ship) – this we believe is the biggest and most chronic damage,” said Prof. de Alwis. 

He further said they had also expressed their concerns to Parliament about not being given the necessary allowances to at least mobilise resources to continue their work.

MEPA General Manager A.J.M. Gunasekara told The Sunday Morning that the legal claim which covered damage assessment-related costs and costs incurred by the National Aquatic Resources Research and Development Agency (NARA) was being handled by the AG’s Department. 

“We are handling the interim claims for the beach cleanups while the Fisheries Ministry has made claims to cover the direct economic loss to the fisheries industry. These claims fall outside of the legal claim,” said Gunasekara. 

According to Gunasekara, the London P&I Club, the UK-based insurer of the ship, had recently confirmed an interim payment of $ 1.36 million for the reimbursement of the beach cleanup expenses from September 2022 to June 2023. 

“Previously, they have paid eight claims to us which amount to about Rs. 2 billion in total. They also paid about Rs. 3 billion to the Fisheries Ministry,” he said. 

Speaking to The Sunday Morning, Centre for Environmental Justice (CEJ) Chairman Ravindranath Dabare said: “The recent interim claim of $ 1.36 million cannot be treated as an achievement by the Government and is not part of the success of the litigation in Singapore.” 

Last year, the CEJ estimated that Sri Lanka could claim about $ 10 billion in compensation through litigation. 

The MV X-Press Pearl, a Singapore-flagged vessel, caught fire off the coast of Colombo on 20 May 2021, leading to what has since been assessed as the worst maritime disaster to have struck Sri Lanka. A United Nations (UN) Environmental Advisory Mission said that pollutants including oil, hazardous chemicals, and plastics had severely damaged the country’s sensitive coastline while the geographic extent of the plastic (nurdles) spill was the largest on record.

Multiple attempts to contact Justice Minister Dr. Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe proved futile. However, Justice Ministry Secretary M.N. Ranasinghe, when contacted, said that inquiries would have to be directed to the AG’s Department.