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- The Guardian, Wednesday 3 June 2009
Sir Peter Job, chairman of Shell’s remuneration committee and City grandee, should know the drill. When the majority of voting shareholders in a major FTSE 100 company give a thumbs-down to the report on directors’ remuneration, vague words from the non-executives about “reflecting carefully” only buy a little time. After a while, action is expected, which usually means a resignation.
That’s what happened in 2003 at GlaxoSmithKline in the big protest over Jean-Pierre Garnier’s potential payoff. A fortnight after 51% of shareholders voted against the remuneration report, Paul Allaire, chairman of the remuneration committee, was out. Keith Butler-Wheelhouse didn’t last much longer at Sainsbury’s after the protest against Sir Peter Davis’s payoff in 2004. In Sainsbury’s case, a U-turn by family shareholders spared the board the humiliation of defeat on the day, but Butler-Wheelhouse was toast anyway.
A fortnight after Shell’s defeat, it’s worth asking: what is Job waiting for? If he’s hoping that shareholders’ anger will abate, he will be disappointed. Fund managers remember how he referred to the bonus issue as “an irritant” and they are determined to be irritating.
More likely, Job fails to appreciate why investors are angry. Let’s spell it out: Shell paid £3.6m in bonuses to directors even though performance targets were missed the firm finished fourth, rather than third or better, in a league table of big oil companies ranked by shareholder returns. Yes, the small print allowed the remuneration committee to use discretion but the 60% vote against its report shows that shareholders think the right was abused.
Job plans meetings with shareholders in autumn, suggesting he thinks he can survive that long. Maybe he can but humiliation looks inevitable if he’s still clinging on at next year’s annual meeting. A prompt resignation would surely be more dignified.
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.
