NGO Shipbreaking Platform has said it will not comply with a legal threat from demolition cash buyer GMS to remove all defamatory references to it from the lobby group’s website.
Brussels based Shipbreaking Platform has accused GMS of “harassment” and said its threat of legal action was an attempt to prevent it from exposing “underhand practices in the shipbreaking industry.”
Shipbreaking Platform founder and director Ingvild Jenssen said: “We have no intention to remove truthful information from our website and will not apologise for reporting on the business of trafficking ships for dirty and dangerous breaking.”
GMS had written to Shipbreaking Platform threatening to sue it unless it offers and “unconditional apology” and the removal of all “defamatory” references.
It comes after Shipbreaking Platform earlier retracted an allegation that GMS was the cash buyer behind the sale of four reefer carriers for demolition to beaching yards in 2012 after the cash buyer complained of “fake news”.
The demolition sale is now the subject of a court case in Rotterdam for breach of European environmental waste export laws.
Bangladesh’s PHP Family is also threatening to sue Shipbreaking Platform for references it made to the breaker’s safety record in a two press releases made at the end of last year.
Shipbreaking Platform has pulled out of a plan to appear on a discussion panel at a TradeWinds Events Ship Recycling Forum tomorrow as the session moderator Nikos Mikelis works for GMS.
