Sri Lanka's billion-dollar X-Press Pearl judgment faces uphill legal battle in Singapore

IN what has been hailed as a landmark environmental ruling, Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court recently ordered the operators of the MV X-Press Pearl to pay $ 1 billion in compensation for the catastrophic 2021 maritime disaster that ravaged the nation’s coastline.

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However, as the Sri Lankan Government prepares to enforce this judgment against the vessel’s Singapore-based operators, it faces a formidable array of legal and practical obstacles that cast serious doubt on whether the historic award will ever be collected in full.

The core of the challenge lies in the complex interplay between Sri Lankan constitutional law, Singaporean enforcement statutes, and entrenched principles of international maritime law. Legal experts suggest that while the judgment is a significant moral and legal victory for Sri Lanka, its journey through the Singaporean courts is likely to be fraught with difficulty, potentially rendering the billion-dollar award a pyrrhic victory.

The judgment and its unique nature

The MV X-Press Pearl, a Singapore-flagged container ship, caught fire and sank off the coast of Colombo in May 2021, spilling vast quantities of hazardous chemicals and plastic pellets, resulting in Sri Lanka’s worst-ever marine pollution event. The Supreme Court’s ruling, delivered on 24 July 2025, arose not from a conventional civil lawsuit but from fundamental rights petitions filed by citizens and environmental groups.

This constitutional origin is a critical detail. The court found that the ship’s operators, captain, and local agent had violated the fundamental rights of Sri Lanka’s citizens. The $ 1 billion award was framed as “interim compensation” under the “polluter pays” principle, with the funds payable directly to the Sri Lankan Treasury to be used for environmental remediation and economic recovery. It is this public-interest nature of the award that creates the first major hurdle to enforcement in Singapore.

Enforcing the judgment in Singapore: The REFJA gateway