The Boston Globe: Shell to pay $151m to settle misstatements
“fails to hold personally accountable the corporate insiders who perpetrated the fraud,”
By Associated Press
July 30, 2004
LONDON — The Royal Dutch/Shell Group of Cos. agreed to pay a $120 million penalty to US authorities for misstating its oil and gas reserves.
Shell disclosed the fine yesterday as it reported a 54 percent increase in quarterly net income that reflected high global oil prices. Net income for the three months to June 30 was $4.0 billion, compared with $2.6 billion in the same period a year earlier.
Shell said it had agreed in principle to pay a $120 million civil penalty to resolve the pending inquiry by the Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as $31 million in connection with an inquiry by British authorities.
The Anglo-Dutch company stunned shareholders in January when it downgraded 20 percent, or 3.9 billion barrels, of its reserves from “proven” to less certain categories. Three other downgrades followed, for a total reduction in reserves of 23 percent, or 4.47 billion barrels. Shell then dismissed several top executives and delayed by two months the release of its annual report.
Bill Lerach, a San Diego lawyer representing two US pension funds suing the company over the reserves restatements, called the SEC’s decision to settle “short-sighted and disappointing.”
“It does nothing to force the company to correct corporate governance flaws that allowed the oil reserve fraud to occur and fails to hold personally accountable the corporate insiders who perpetrated the fraud,” he said.
© Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
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.
