Mail on Sunday: £150m bonanza for Shell auditors
Patrick Tooher,
30 May 2004
Posted 31 May 04
ACCOUNTANTS who failed to spot Shell’s massive overbooking of reserves were paid more than £150m in the past five years by the embattled oil giant.
Most of the fees paid to KPMG and PwC were for lucrative consultancy work rather than the basic audit, which spectacularly missed major shortcomings in Shell’s own internal financial controls.
However, Shell says it has no plans to change its auditors, who will stand for re-election at next month’s annual meeting.
The Financial Mail on Sunday has established that Shell pays more in audit fees than any other blue-chip UK company.
Last year, the company spent $32m (£17.5m) for the main audit and $24m in consultancy fees, according to accounts just published.
Chairman Sir Philip Watts, exploration chief Walter van de Wijver and finance director Judy Boynton lost their jobs this year after Shell slashed oil and gas estimates by five billion barrels.
KPMG and PwC face questioning by the Securities & Exchange Commission, the US financial regulator, over their role at Shell.
A damning report into the reserves fiasco by the American law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell found that ‘aggressive’ booking arose because Shell’s internal reserves audit department was ‘understaffed and undertrained’.
The report added: ‘The function was performed by a single, part-time former Shell employee’, with almost no training in regulatory issues.
The report also revealed that Shell bosses were aware for years that the reserves estimates were wrong, but investors were not told until January.
Last week, Shell downgraded its reserves estimates for the fourth time this year.
This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.
Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
