This posed a great challenge for the lawyers in filing their claims that are outside of their contractual agreement. The team advised the crew members to extract proof of their actual salary received from bank account statements and other supporting documents. With this additional proof of actual wages received by each crew member, the lawyers managed to draft and submit the Crew’s Statement of Claims to the court, which amounted to almost US$160,000 on the date of filing. The seafarers’ wages will then be recovered from the monies collected from the sales proceeds from the successful auction. The ship was successfully sold on 17 April.

Apart from worrying about their owed wages, the seafarers were concerned about their passage back home to their families. Due to the current COVID-19 situation, their repatriation home has been affected due to various countries imposing border controls and restricting crew changes to combat the spread of the virus. With advice from SMOU, the Russian Embassy has been consulting the Sheriff’s agent to facilitate the repatriation process. Arrangements are underway as the Sheriff’s agent continues to work with Singaporean government agencies to ensure that the crew members can be repatriated home safely.