A shipwreck that claimed six seafarers’ lives and fouled Alaska’s sensitive coastline is the subject of a $4m legal fight in the US nearly two decades after the disaster.

Malaysia’s IMC Shipping and the US Coast Guard’s National Pollution Funds Center (NPFC) are fighting over the last unpaid piece of the bill for the 2004 grounding of the 72,000-dwt Selendang Ayu (built 1998).