A legal row between Bangladeshi shipbreaker PHP Family and environmental group NGO Shipbreaking Platform could be heading for the courts.

As reported earlier, PHP’s lawyers had written to the Brussels-based group demanding it retract what PHP has alleged were “defamatory” press releases about safety and environmental issues at its yard, and that it issue an apology.

Issued in December last year, NGO Shipbreaking’s press releases criticised PHP’s certification of compliance with the Hong Kong Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships by Italian classification society Rina.