Claiming that not only legal factors were instrumental in filing the case in Singapore, NPP MP Anura Kumara Dissanayake said yesterday that filing the case by the insurer of the X-Press Pearl in the UK to limit the compensation and filing the case by Sri Lanka in Singapore to claim compensation were inter-connected.
He told Parliament that the insurer of the X-Press Pearl has filed a case in a court in the UK to limit the compensation to USD 26 million and that the Attorney General’s Department in Sri Lanka has not made any intervention in the case for the last one and half years.
He raised doubts over the AG’s Department’s actions and questioned as to why the AG’s Department has failed to make any intervention even though the case was very important in Sri Lanka’s attempt to claim compensation.
Dissanayake said the case filed by the insurer in the UK court is more important than the case filed by Sri Lanka in Singapore to claim compensation.
“We learn that the lawyers of the insurer have informed the Australian Law firm which provided legal advice to Sri Lanka about the case filed in the UK court. But, Sri Lanka has not made any intervention,” he said.
He said Singapore and the UK have signed a convention over limiting the compensation in shipping disasters and that filing the compensation case in Singapore by the Attorney General was questionable.
“Even though the insurer obtained a verdict limiting the compensation in the UK court, it is essential for them to get the compensation case filed in Singapore court to get the benefit of the verdict. So, filing the case in Singapore by the Attorney General and the case in the UK limiting compensation are interconnected. There has been a questionable transaction between the two incidents,” he said.(Ajith Siriwardana and Yohan Perera)
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