Singapore threatens legal action against 10 firms over Indonesian haze fires

Singapore moves against companies

Singapore's government has threatened legal action against 10 businesses, several with deep ties to the city-state, which it says are behind the Indonesian wildfires that have produced the haze. Officials have also asked whether other companies listed on the local stock exchange may be involved, and have warned they could be hit through their profits, access to financing and standing with investors. The legal basis is the Transboundary Haze Pollution Act of 2014, which allows criminal charges against firms found to have contributed to haze-producing fires, with fines of up to S$100,000 (US$78,000) a day, capped at S$2mn (US$1.6mn) per conviction. Early enforcement stalled because the environment ministry said Indonesia's counterpart had not supplied the information needed to bring charges. Singapore has now issued 10 prevention notices, asking the companies to put out fires on their land, stop burning and submit action plans, with non-compliance exposing them to prosecution and fines. Senior Minister K. Shanmugam stressed that the parties responsible had to be identified.

Finance links and the limits of enforcement

The fires are blamed on slash-and-burn practices by paper and palm oil producers, and a strong El Nino weather pattern has raised temperatures and reduced rainfall across Indonesia. Ivan Png of the National University of Singapore, who has pushed for tougher haze laws, said the companies depend on Singapore for equity and financing, which he argued should make them pay attention to the government.

you would think that would make them want to pay attention to what the government is saying

The dispute also risks a rift with Indonesia, which has so far answered the pressure with its own accusations.

Indonesia's response and the dispute over causes

President Prabowo Subianto condemned countries that he said insult the Indonesian nation, and what he called environmental terrorism, which he linked to people who set fires deliberately. He said the causes were not exclusively natural, that residents had detained several people accused of deliberate burning, and that many companies bore responsibility. He promised to name the companies involved at a later point, but named neither companies nor countries. The environmental group WALHI said it mapped hotspots using NASA fire data and found that about 50 percent of high-confidence hotspots lay inside company concessions, and its report this month listed 40 timber and palm oil concessions. Campaigner Umi Ma'rufah told AFP that the fires cannot be separated from company practices, which she described as a structural problem. Nusantara Atlas data put the area burned this year at nearly two million hectares as of Thursday, 22 October, while Al Jazeera reported more than 2 million hectares and SIC reported 19,200 square kilometres.

Protests and political pressure

According to El Confidencial, protests began on Monday, 19 October, and have spread to more than half a dozen cities, including towns on Borneo. On Tuesday, 20 October, Greenpeace Indonesia activists unfurled banners from a 30-metre monument in Jakarta, and hundreds of students from Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Bandung and Makassar then filled the streets. Their demands include declaring the fires a national disaster, prosecuting the responsible companies, measures against rising prices, limits on the army's role in civilian affairs and an end to corruption. Students in Kalimantan and Sumatra clashed with police, and protesters have targeted Prabowo on the second anniversary of his presidency. A recent poll cited by The Jakarta Post put his approval rating at 44.5 percent in October, his lowest since taking office.

Health, courts and the region

Residents of Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo, have urged the government to step up firefighting, and a court in Pontianak began assessing whether a class action against the state is admissible. The suit, brought by residents of a province of about six million people, accuses the government of negligence, omission and failures that it says caused a serious public health crisis. Activist Achmad Mundzirin, 36, of Pontianak said the case demands accountability for managing forest and land fires. SIC reported that more than 280,000 people have been diagnosed with respiratory problems, and authorities have not released a death toll. Smoke reached dangerous levels in Malaysia, Singapore and Timor-Leste, prompting ASEAN to convene a meeting on the crisis. Neighbouring leaders have offered help rather than open criticism, although Malaysian MP Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman said Indonesia's fires should be treated as pariahs of the region. The 2002 ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution is legally binding but has no judicial enforcement body, and its coordinating office in Jakarta only opened in April 2026.

Greenpeace Southeast Asia campaign strategist Heng Kiah Chun told Al Jazeera that the response has not addressed the underlying causes.

While these efforts are necessary, they have not sufficiently addressed the underlying causes, including forest and peatland destruction, unsustainable land-use practices and inadequate corporate accountability

In Singapore, air quality was classified as very unhealthy in October, at times the worst in the world according to IQAir, with outdoor events cancelled and hospital admissions for respiratory complaints surging.