A Singapore shipping company told AFP on Tuesday it will refuse to pay Sri Lankan court-ordered damages of US$1 billion for causing that country’s worst case of environmental pollution.In an exclusive interview, X-Press Feeders chief executive Shmuel Yoskovitz said he believed paying would have wide-ranging implications on global shipping and “set a dangerous precedent”.The company operated the MV X-Press Pearl that sank off Colombo Port in June 2021 after a fire — believed caused by a nitric acid leak — that raged for nearly two weeks.Its cargo included 81 containers of hazardous goods, including acids and lead ingots, and hundreds of tonnes of plastic pellets.The ship was refused permission by ports in Qatar and India to offload the leaking nitric acid before it arrived in Sri Lankan waters. Tonnes of microplastic granules from the ship inundated an 80-kilometre (50-mile) stretch of beach along Sri Lanka’s western coast. Fishing was prohibited for months.Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court in July ordered the company to pay Colombo an “initial” US$1 billion in damages within a year, with the first tranche of US$250 million to be paid by Tuesday.It also ordered the company “to make such other and further payments” in the future as the court may direct.- ‘Hanging guillotine’ -Yoskovitz rejected the open-ended nature of the penalty. “We are not paying because the whole base of maritime trade is based on the limitation of liability. This judgment undermines this limitation of liability,” he told AFP.”Any payment towards the judgment could set a dangerous precedent for how maritime incidents will be resolved in the future,” he said.Sri Lanka’s government said it would ask its chief prosecutor what action it could take.”We will be guided by the advice of the attorney general on what further steps to take,” government spokesman and media minister Nalinda Jayatissa told reporters in Colombo.The United Nations office in Colombo noted that the “polluter pays” principle was enshrined in global agreements, including the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.”The Supreme Court’s ruling is a vital step toward justice and accountability,” the UN in Sri Lanka said on X.Yoskovitz said the absence of limitations could lead to higher insurance premiums, which would be ultimately passed on to consumers.The chief executive again apologised for the incident, saying the company recognised the disaster and was trying to make amends. He said X-Press Feeders had already spent $170 million to remove the wreck, clean up the seabed and beaches, and compensate affected fishermen.”We are not trying to hide… We are willing to pay more, but it has to be under certain marine conventions and an amount that is full and final and then it can be settled, and we can move on,” he said.”But to live under this hanging guillotine — it is simply impossible to operate like this.”- Long-term effects -In Colombo, Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court has scheduled a hearing on Thursday about the implementation of its decision.One of the petitioners who sought compensation for the pollution has called for further research to determine the full extent of the damage to the island’s marine ecosystems.”If you visit the coastlines today, there is nothing visible in terms of plastic pollution. A major clean-up took place soon after the X-Press Pearl incident, but the effects of the pollution will be felt for a long time,” said Hemantha Withanage from the Centre for Environmental Justice.It remains unclear how Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court could enforce its decision. However, in its 361-page decision in July, the court ordered the police and the state prosecutor to initiate criminal proceedings for non-compliance if the parties were present in Sri Lanka.Yoskovitz expressed concern over the ship’s Russian captain, Vitaly Tyutkalo, who has been banned from leaving Sri Lanka for more than four years, as well as the company’s third-party agents there. The firm had offered to pay a fine for the skipper’s release, but this was refused, according to Yoskovitz. X-Press Feeders obtained an order from London’s Admiralty Court in July 2023, limiting its liability to a maximum of 19 million pounds (US$25 million), but Sri Lanka has challenged that.The Sri Lankan government also filed a lawsuit against the ship’s owners in the Singapore International Commercial Court. But that has been stayed pending the result of the case in London, with a pre-trial hearing expected in May 2026. 

The world economy will grow more than previously forecast this year after absorbing the shock of US President Donald Trump’s tariffs, but their full impact remains uncertain, the OECD said Tuesday.In June, the Paris-based organisation had cut its forecast from 3.1 percent to 2.9 percent, warning at the time that Trump’s tariffs would stifle the world economy.But in an updated outlook on Tuesday, it raised the projection to 3.2 percent, saying the economy “proved more resilient than anticipated” in the first half of 2025.The OECD said “front-loading” — companies rushing to import goods ahead of Trump’s tariffs — “was an important source of support”.The economy also got a boost from strong AI-related investments in the United States and government spending in China.The updated figure is still a slight slowdown from 3.3 percent in 2024.”The full effects of tariff increases have yet to be felt — with many changes being phased in over time and companies initially absorbing some tariff increases through (profit) margins,” the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said.”But (they) are becoming increasingly visible in spending choices, labour markets and consumer prices,” the report.- ‘Significant risks remain’ -World growth is due to slow to 2.9 percent in 2026 “as front-loading ceases and higher tariff rates and still-high policy uncertainty dampen investment and trade”, the OECD said.Trump imposed a baseline 10 percent tariff on imports from around the world in April.He later hit dozens of countries with even higher duties, but the US leader also left the door open for negotiations, striking deals with Britain, Japan and the European Union, among others.The United States has yet to find a compromise with China, though the world’s two biggest economies have temporarily de-escalated their tit-for-tat tariffs while they negotiate.The overall effective US tariff rate rose to an estimated 19.5 percent in August, the highest level since 1933, the OECD said.”Significant risks to the economic outlook remain,” the OECD said.”Amid ongoing policy uncertainty, a key concern is that bilateral tariff rates could be raised further on merchandise imports,” it said.The OECD also warned that inflation could rise as food prices increase, geopolitical tensions push energy prices higher and companies begin to pass the cost of higher tariffs to consumers.Other concerns include high levels of public debt as well as risks to financial markets.”On the upside, reductions in trade restrictions or faster development and adoption of artificial intelligence technologies could strengthen growth prospects,” it said.- Growth due to slow -The OECD also upgraded the growth outlook of the United States for 2025 from 1.6 percent to 1.8 percent.But it warned that growth in the world’s biggest economy is expected to slow as “higher effective tariff rates further come into effect and policy uncertainty remains elevated.”A drop in net immigration and cuts in the federal workforce “are also anticipated to soften economic growth”.The OECD raised the growth outlook of other major economies: to 4.9 percent in China, 1.2 percent in the eurozone and 1.1 percent in Japan.But the OECD flagged a drop in industrial production in recent months in several countries, including Brazil, Germany and South Korea, and moderating consumption in the United States, China and the eurozone.