BBC NEWS: Troubled Shell faces shareholders
28 June 04
Shell is struggling to regain shareholder confidence
Oil giant Shell is facing shareholders in London and the Hague for the first time since it cut reserves in January.
Monday’s annual meeting was delayed for two months by the crisis which cost three top officials their jobs.
Shell’s complex structure is likely to be a topic, with big investors wanting to see corporate governance improve.
Shareholders in the Hague are expected to try to block a resolution which could clear managers of responsibility for this year’s multiple downgrades.
The resolution is a routine one which agrees that managing directors “be discharged of responsibility in respect of their management for the year 2003”.
But some US shareholders fear backing the language could weaken the chances of suing the firm.
In all, Shell has cut back on its claimed reserves four times since the start of 2004.
Byzantine
Shell’s trouble with overbooked reserves is thought by many shareholders to be the result of the company’s dual nature.
Its full name – Royal Dutch/Shell – reflects the fact that it is the amalgamation of one arm in the Netherlands, holding 60% of the operating company, and another in the UK.
The 170-year-old company has two separate boards, part of a web of governance that critics say hampers management control and was the main reason why bad news about the reserves took months to emerge.
Earlier in June Shell said it would consider “all possible methods” to improve its hierarchies, although a full merger is thought to be unlikely.
“People everywhere ask what is going on at Shell and I agree such a crisis should never have happened,” Jeroen van der Veer, who took the firm’s top job in early March, told shareholders.
“But it has, and I sincerely regret this.”
The apology may not be enough to mollify investors, coming immediately after the firm last week agreed a £1m ($1.83m) payoff to former chairman Sir Philip Watts, the highest-ranking casualty of the downgrades.
“We regret that you are not going to present today a view on the changes to the corporate structure,” said a representative of the Dutch pension fund ABP to directors at the AGM in the Hague.
“You are asking for more patience than the market
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.
