Compounding a miserable week for GOL Offshore after two of its ships were impounded in the UK over unpaid salaries, a bank has now been granted the right to sell six of the firm's ships. A court in Mumbai has given DVB the go ahead to sell six OSVs controlled by GOL Offshore, formerly known as Great Offshore Ltd., in a bid to recover outstanding loans.

Two state-run lenders—Exim Bank of India and Punjab National Bank (PNB)—have filed separate winding-up petitions in the Bombay high court seeking to liquidate the company's assets to recover loans.

GOL Offshore was formed when the offshore division of Great Eastern Shipping was spun off into a separate company in October 2006.

Earlier this week, a pair of its ships were detained in the UK over unpaid salaries to crews, something that sparked a British trade union official to decry the conditions onboard as "modern day slavery".