By FP: PUBLISHED: 3:55, 2 March 2016
Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell came under renewed scrutiny on Wednesday over its environmental record in Nigeria after lawyers brought fresh claims of damage caused by spills to a London court.
British legal firm Leigh Day has filed two cases at the High Court in a bid to force the Anglo-Dutch energy major to clean up damage caused in the communities of Ogale and Bille in the Niger Delta, Nigeria’s main oil-producing region, and provide compensation.
In Bille, the lawyers hope to prove that Shell is liable for failing to protect its pipelines from damage caused by third parties, which, they said, could mark a “significant expansion” in the firm’s liability.
A 2011 report by the United Nations Environment Programme found that decades of oil pollution in Ogoniland region, where Ogale is located, may require the world’s biggest ever clean-up.
Leigh Day says that Shell, historically Nigeria’s largest producer, has failed to act on the report despite its promises — a claim that was also levelled last year by Amnesty International.
The lawyers argued in a press statement that the 40,000-strong Ogale community continues to live with “chronic levels” of land and water pollution, which has had a devastating impact on its farming and fishing.
In hearings expected to take place later this year, Shell will argue that the two cases should be heard in Nigeria, not in Britain, according to a spokesman for the company’s Nigerian subsidiary, SPDC.
He added that both Bille and Ogale are areas “heavily impacted” by oil theft, sabotage and illegal refining, activities which Shell has long argued are the main causes of pollution in the Niger Delta.
In Ogoniland, he said the company was acting on the UN report through an 18-month clean-up and remediation programme agreed last year with the Nigerian government and community members.
Chima Williams, of Environmental Rights Action (ERA)/Friends of the Environment, a Nigerian environmental rights lobby group, said the response to the UN report did not address the issue of compensation.
“This is why the London suit is very important at this point. It will bridge the gap in terms of helping the people of Ogoniland to get off the ground and have their lives back,” he told AFP.
Shell agreed in January 2015 to pay more than $80 million to the Nigerian fishing community of Bodo for two serious oil spills in 2008, following a three-year legal battle brought by Leigh Day in London.
A Dutch court also ruled in December that four Nigerian farmers demanding compensation and a clean-up in four heavily-polluted Niger Delta villages can bring a case against the energy giant in the Netherlands.
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.
