Dutch Court Acquits Shell For Majority Of Nigerian Oil Spill Damages
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Anglo-Dutch oil giant Royal Dutch Shell Plc was cleared on Wednesday from four out of five allegations of wrongdoing in oil spills in the Niger Delta, reported AFP, with the company’s Nigerian subsidiary ordered to pay unspecified damages for the remaining claim – to a farmer whose fishponds were devastated.
Anglo-Dutch oil giant Royal Dutch Shell Plc was cleared on Wednesday from four out of five allegations of wrongdoing in oil spills in the Niger Delta, reported AFP, with the company’s Nigerian subsidiary ordered to pay unspecified damages for the remaining claim – to a farmer whose fishponds were devastated.
The ruling, by the District Court of The Hague, ended a five-year-long lawsuit against the oil company; and saw both sides claiming victory despite minor concessions.
Shell, who have long argued that the oil spills were not its fault but the result of criminal tampering, said it was “happy” with the decision as it had absolved the parent company in the Netherlands from any responsibility in Nigeria.
“We are very pleased by the ruling of the court today that both Shell and Shell Nigeria have been proven right in the sense that the parent company is neither liable nor responsible and that the damages and leaks have been caused by sabotage and theft,” said Shell’s vice president of environment Allard Castelein.
[quote]“This ruling will enable more people to understand what is happening on the ground in Nigeria,” added Jonathan French, a Shell spokesman, to the New York Times. “We have this rampant problem of criminal activities: oil theft, sabotage, and illegal refining. That is the real tragedy of the Niger Delta,” he said.[/quote]Ken Henshaw, a Niger Delta activist from campaign group Social Action, however felt that the court’s decision – to award compensation for the one victorious farmer – signalled a changing tide for further lawsuits against the oil giant.
“We didn’t win all the cases, but we won one, and that one is a precedent,” said Henshaw to The Guardian. “We are prepared to appeal the other ones. Shell tries to give the impression that the oil spills are caused by sabotage, but we are convinced that it was not sabotage. It is the result of equipment failure and neglect on the part of Shell.”
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[quote]”We are emboldened by this victory, we feel confident that we will definitely succeed on appeal. This is a major threshold, now that we have crossed it, we can bring more claims. The communities who have had their lives ruined by oil companies now feel galvanized to take action,” he said.[/quote]“This is the first time that Shell has been ordered by the court to pay compensation for damage,” added Geert Ritsema, from the environmental group Friends of the Earth, which aided the farmers in filing the case, to Spiegel Online. “The Nigerian justice system has never been able to accomplish this.”
The case had been closely watched by international observers, as it was the first time that a Dutch company had been sued in a domestic court for activities conducted by a foreign subsidiary.
Environmental groups say multinationals have double standards in developing countries and regions such as Europe or North America. They want the Netherlands and other Western nations to pass laws forcing companies to enforce the same environmental responsibility standards abroad as at home.
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Al Jazeera’s Simon McGregor-Wood, reporting from the Hague, noted: “There will be a bit of a shiver going through the corporate world because all along the environmental companies have been arguing that companies like Shell do not necessarily act with the same level of responsibility in places like Nigeria which are a long way from home.
“When things go wrong, when there are these catastrophic pollutions or these systematic pollutions occur, they are not as quick to clear up as if a tanker would spill its oil off the channel for the coast of Netherlands,” he added.
[quote]“It was the idea of this case to set the precedent that these big companies have to take care wherever they are operating in the world,” McGregor-Wood said.[/quote]
