US firm Grant & Eisenhofer (G&E) landed an advisory role on the first-ever pan-European class settlement of securities fraud claims.
G&E, representing a European investment group of more than 50 investors, including some from the UK, agreed to resolve claims against Royal Dutch Shell over the company allegedly having reported an ‘overstatement’ of its oil and gas reserves.
The settlement is still awaiting approval from the Dutch courts, but when finalised it is expected that the shareholders will receive $450m (£227.55m).
The announced settlement stems from Shell’s extreme inflation of its proven oil and gas reserves from 1997 to 2003, which led to massive financial restatements by the company beginning in 2004.
Estimates are that over a six-year period Shell allegedly overstated more than $100bn (£50.57bn) of future cashflows, based on billions of barrels of oil that were not actually held in its reserves.
Although there is no legal mechanism to pursue a class action, under a new statute never before applied to a securities claim, Dutch law allows the court to accept a collective resolution of a dispute, so long as both sides petition the court, even in the absence of a civil lawsuit.
The investment group, which holds more than one billion shares in Shell, comprises a number of public pension funds that invested in the oil company during the years that the company repeatedly overstated the true extent of its oil and gas reserves.
G&E managing partner Jay Eisenhofer advised on the settlement for the investment group, while Shell’s legal director Beat Hess worked on the settlement on behalf of the oil company.
http://www.thelawyer.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=125248&d=122&h=24&f=46
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.
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