Greenpeace report on shipwreck seeks to repair legal responsibility on MSC

The Greenpeace South Asia on Thursday (November 13, 2025) launched its new investigative report on the sinking of MSC ELSA 3 alongside the coast off Kerala.

The report exposes how MSC, the world’s largest container service firm, has systematically expanded its operations utilizing getting older vessels and exploiting regulatory loopholes and flag-of-convenience practices which have repeatedly brought on environmental disasters in South Asia.

The report titled ‘Beneath Deck: The Reality Beneath What You Sea (Mediterranean Transport Firm — MSC)’ throws mild on a company mannequin that limits incident legal responsibility and externalises environmental and social prices onto weaker jurisdictions within the International South. Urging the MSC to adjust to the Kerala Excessive Courtroom’s order directing it to pay ₹1,227 crore as a compensation safety deposit, over 8,000 petitions and postcard signatures are being delivered to the MSC headquarters by a crew of volunteers.

The report says that the MSC turned the world’s largest container service by deploying getting older, second-hand vessels to South Asian routes below flags of comfort, lowering prices and limiting incident legal responsibility, as a part of a double customary sample that has repeatedly shifted the burden of environmental danger onto growing nations. Apart from, the report notes that regardless of commitments to sustainable recycling, MSC continues to systematically eliminate getting older ships in South Asian beaching yards, notably in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, the place situations are notoriously hazardous for each staff and the atmosphere.

Just lately, the MSC introduced plans to reflag 12 vessels below the Indian registry adopted by discussions between MSC CEO Søren Toft and Prime Minister Narendra Modi throughout India Maritime Week 2025. Nonetheless, the report says such growth ought to include strict compliance with environmental and security norms, particularly given MSC’s current report of negligence and ecological hurt in South Asian waters.

The MSC ELSA 3a Liberia-flagged vessel with a recognized historical past of security deficiencies, sank off the Kerala coast in Could 2025, spilling oil, chemical substances, and large quantities of plastic nurdles that devastated marine ecosystems and coastal livelihoods. The Greenpeace emphasised that the corporate ought to promptly adjust to the Excessive Courtroom order and the Kerala authorities ought to act urgently to make sure that compensation can attain affected communities as quickly as potential, by means of a clear and inclusive mechanism.

Impacted communities have already raised issues about being neglected of the formal declare processes as a consequence of lack of documentation. “Within the mild of efforts by MSC to evade accountability, the State also needs to create a decentralized, accessible claims system to make sure that nobody is left behind,” stated Amruta SN, local weather campaigner at Greenpeace India.