By Naimul Karim DHAKA, July 14 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – A Bangladeshi woman whose husband died while dismantling an oil tanker at a ship-breaking yard in 2018 can file a negligence claim against a British company involved in the vessel’s sale, London’s High Court ruled this week.
Khalil Mollah, 32, fell to his death while working on a tanker called the EKTA in the port city of Chattogram in southeastern Bangladesh, where scores of end-of-life ships are sent to be scrapped each year.
British lawyers representing his widow, Hamida Begum, took her case to court in April 2019, arguing that Maran (UK) Ltd was responsible for the ship ending up in Bangladesh, where working conditions in ship-breaking yards were known to be dangerous.
Maran was not immediately available to comment on Monday’s High Court judgment, which said Begum had “a real prospect of succeeding in relation to her claim in negligence.”
“The proximate cause of the accident was the deceased’s fall from a height, but on a broader, purposive approach the accident resulted from a chain of events which led to the vessel being grounded at Chattogram,” the court’s judgment read.
The ruling denied an application filed by Maran earlier this year to have Begum’s claim struck out.
The EKTA, which was formerly called the Maran Centaurus, had been owned and managed by companies belonging to the Angelicoussis Shipping Group, which included Maran (UK) Limited, according to details from the judgment.
Rather than deal directly with ship-breakers it has been standard practice for decades for ship-owners to act through brokers or intermediaries, the ruling said.
The Maran Centaurus was sold for demolition in an August 2017 deal worth more than $16 million.
Bangladesh is one of the most popular destinations for breaking end-of-life ships with at least 230 ships out of about 670 broken on its beaches last year, according to NGO Shipbreaking Platform.
Thousands of Bangladeshis depend on the sector for survival, but rights groups have been sounding the alarm about hazardous working conditions in the industry for years.
At least 24 ship-breaking workers were killed last year and another 34 were seriously injured at the scrap yards, the highest toll in almost a decade, according to Bangladeshi non-profit Young Power in Social Action.
Most companies sell ships to scrap dealers, better known as cash buyers, who pay the highest price for ships and are closely linked to beach yards where unsafe working practices are common, Shipbreaking Platform said in a recent report.
Oliver Holland, a partner at the Leigh Day law firm representing Begum, said that trend could change if Maran (UK) is made to accept that it owed Begum’s husband a duty of care.
“Maybe that will go some way to making UK shipping companies think twice about accepting greater financial reward for their end-of-life vessels at the cost of the environment and the lives of South Asian workers,” he said. (Reporting by Naimul Karim @Naimonthefield; Editing by Helen Popper. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers the lives of people around the world who struggle to live freely or fairly. Visit http://news.trust.org)
CAIRO, March 2 (Reuters) – The Houthi Transport Ministry in Yemen said on Saturday there had been a “glitch” in undersea communication cables in the Red Sea as a result of actions...
by Captain John Konrad (gCaptain) In the current American labor landscape, the stark contrast between the assertive strides of transportation unions and the maritime sector’s unique labor challenges is striking....
By Mikhail Flores MANILA, Dec 2 (Reuters) – Evacuations were under way in the Philippines after a quake of at least magnitude 7.5 struck the southern region of Mindanao on Saturday night,...
December 2, 2023
Total Views: 2163
Why Join the gCaptain Club?
Access exclusive insights, engage in vibrant discussions, and gain perspectives from our CEO.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.