An environmentalist group and four Nigerians, on Friday, filed a suit against Anglo-Dutch Shell in the Netherlands, claiming the company was negligent in cleaning up oil spills in Nigeria.
The group made good an earlier warning in May, to sue Shell due to the slow pace of court proceedings in Nigeria, and Shells refusal to obey court orders.
The civil suit filed by the four men and Friends of the Earth, is unusual in that it seeks to hold Shells parent company liable for damages allegedly caused by its Nigerian subsidiary, the Shell Petroleum Development Company.
The latest suit, which first hearing has been fixed for February 2009, has increased the spate of lawsuits against Shell in offshore courts, including the United States, on its operations in Nigeria, where it already has more than 500 pollution cases against it.
But very few of these suits have made their way through the judicial labyrinth to a conclusion leading to compensation, the Spokeswoman, Friends of the Earth, Ms. Anne van Schaik said.
It is very hard to get justice in Nigeria, she said, adding that people run out of time, they run out of breath.
She said the organisation hoped that winning a case in a Dutch court would force Shell to act more quickly to clean spills and compensate victims, or risk a flood of claims in the Netherlands.
Responding, a spokesman of SPDC, Precious Okolobo, while saying that the company could not comment in detail on the court case, however, said both the parent company and its Nigerian subsidiary had answered enquiries on it separately.
He said, Royal Dutch Shell and SPDC answered enquiries by means of separate, detailed and documented letters in June, to enquiries by Milieudefensi on four oil spills in Niger Delta.
Our answers made it clear, amongst other things that all these spills were caused by the actions of unauthorised third parties.
Our responses detailed the various events over time, and the actions that the Joint Venture consisting of NNPC, SPDC, ELF and Agip, took to contain these spills, clean up the spilled oil and restore the areas affected, in full accordance with requirements in force.
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.
