Daily Telegraph: Shell boss to get £2.5m pay-off
“The final payment is likely to exceed 4m”: The pay-off is likely to be seen by critics as another example of “reward for failure”.
By Christopher Hope (Filed: 13/08/2004)
Walter van der Vijver, one of Shell’s two senior directors who resigned after the company’s reserves crisis earlier this year, has been handed a 3.8m (£2.5m) pay-off, worth four times his basic salary.
It is more than twice as much as the £1m given to Sir Philip Watts, Shell’s former chairman of the committee of managing directors, who also lost his job.
The pair quit after the Anglo-Dutch group shocked investors in January by revealing that its “proven” oil and gas reserves were 20pc less than it had thought. Shell then revised the figure a further three times before concluding that it had overstated its proven reserves by 23pc – or 4.47billion barrels.
Both men left in March and were censured a month later in an independent review commissioned by Shell.
Mr Van de Vijver, who was exploration and production director, will pick up half of his severance payment immediately, with the remainder payable in stages on condition he co-operates with reviews into the crisis.
Shell said: “The amount is based on his 25 years service with the group and had it not been for this termination, the otherwise remaining years of service until normal retirement date.”
The final payment is likely to exceed 4m when the value of 115,000 unexercised share options are taken into account. Shell also said that Mr Van der Vijver, 48, had “a legal right” to a deferred pension of 385,388 per year from June 2015, when he reaches retirement age.
Mr Van der Vijver will get the pay-off despite receiving a 900,000 basic salary, and being employed on a contract with three months’ notice.
Investors were sanguine. Richard Singleton, head of corporate governance at fund manager Isis which controls 1pc of Shell, said: “We understand the agreement that had to be signed in the circumstances.” William Claxton-Smith, director of UK equities at Insight, which also has over 1pc, said the deal was the best that could be expected under Dutch employment law.
The pay-off is likely to be seen by critics as another example of “reward for failure”. Last month Shell was fined $120m (£65.5m) by the US Securities and Exchange Commission after an inquiry found it violated reporting, record keeping and anti-trust rules.
It said that agreeing to pay the fine did not mean it admitted the SEC findings or that it was free of blame.
In a further move to draw a line under the crisis, Shell agreed to pay a penalty of £17m imposed by the UK Financial Services Authority.
The investors also welcomed suggestions that a review of Shell’s complicated corporate structure – it is 60-40 owned by shareholders in the Netherlands and the UK – could result in the two companies being merged.
A steering committee, which is being advised by NM Rothschild and Citigroup, was said to be looking at a more radical move than the unification of the two boards. A spokesman said: “Nothing is ruled in and nothing is ruled out. We are considering a very broad range of structures.”
Writing in Shell’s Midyear review, Lord Oxburgh of Liverpool, Shell’s UK chairman, said: “The review is proceeding at good pace. The steering committee will continue to listen to shareholders as their work develops and plan to announce their conclusions in November.”
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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.
