By Andrew Hill
Published: May 5 2009 20:16 | Last updated: May 5 2009 20:16
The clock says you came in fourth by a fraction, but, hey, there was a headwind, you were trying hard and, whats more, that stopwatch is wrongly calibrated. Have bronze, instead, with our compliments.
The decision by Royal Dutch Shells remuneration committee to overrule its own pay policy for top executives for the second year running looks terrible. Like Xstrata, whose shareholders on Tuesday lodged a significant protest against the mining companys remuneration package, Shell has put itself in the line of fire.
But Shell is no Bellway, the housebuilder that last year retroactively scrapped its performance targets without consulting shareholders, earning itself a justified beating at its annual meeting. In fact, the directors on Shells remuneration committee have done almost everything right.
They asked for the right to use discretion, in favour or against pay awards, three years ago to avoid being forced into making an anomalous decision. They rightly identified the inadequacies of total shareholder return, which has grown like leylandii at many companies, overshadowing better measures of performance. They reviewed the policy in the light of investor concerns and added new relative measures for 2009. Finally, they managed all this without over-reliance on compensation consultants. That shows a reassuring independence of mind. After all, if the likes of Sir Peter Job (former chief executive of Reuters), Lord Kerr (once Britains ambassador to the US), Deutsche Banks Josef Ackermann and Jorma Ollila of Nokia needed their hands held, Shell really would be in a pickle.
Where did they go wrong? Simple: the committee exercised its discretion twice in two years to grant shares that executives did not, under a strict interpretation of Shells own rules, deserve, and it did so without going back to shareholders.
These arent hanging offences. Not all investors will don their black caps and vote down the remuneration report. Shell could refine its procedure next year and allow a couple of days between meetings of the committee and the board, to flag issues to big investors. But the titans and titled folk on the committee cant complain about being called to account. Laggards at other companies look to the race leaders to set the standard.
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.
