The Sunday Times Business Person of the Year 2022: The shortlist

Sunday December 11 2022, 12.01am, The Sunday Times

In a year buffeted by war, falling markets and government upheaval, we present the shortlist for the business person who has stood out above the rest

Ben van Beurden, Shell

The Dutchman will call time on a 40-year career at Shell in 2023, having spent nine years in the hot seat. He gambled early in his tenure on the £36 billion takeover of gas giant BG Group, relocated Shell’s head office to London, and cut its dividend when the oil price tanked during Covid. But the company has surged this year on the back of higher oil prices stoked by the Ukraine war. Van Beurden, 64, leaves Shell in a fitter state and with plans to embrace green energy — read more

Strange article in the Prufrock column of The Sunday Times published 2nd August 2015

KEEPING the books for a £200bn behemoth is an endlessly taxing task. Just ask Simon Henry, Royal Dutch Spell’s finance director, who last week unveiled a plunge in profits of almost 40%.

Thankfully, he can call on exemplary advice to help keep track of Shell’s petrodollars. The company’s chief auditor is Ross Hunter at PwC – a man with an interesting past. According to the accounting firm’s website, Hunter helped Nat Rothschild’s Bumi in its “transition from a cash shell to a leading Indonesia-based thermal coal group”. read more

For the first time more than half the energy giant’s profits have not come from oil. The shift reflects a gas revolution

Danny Fortson Published: 9 June 2013

Three months ago at a shipyard in Rotterdam, Daniela Voser, the wife of Shell’s chief executive, smashed a champagne bottle on the hull of a river barge.

The Greenstream lacks the grandeur of a cruise ship, but its launch was notable nonetheless. It is the first vessel built to run on liquefied natural gas. It produces a quarter of the carbon dioxide and a fifth of the nitrous oxide typically emitted from barges powered by fuel oil.

The gas powers electric engines, which means the boat is much less noisy, too. The Greenstream is the Toyota Prius of marine transport. read more

By John Donovan

The Times published an important article by Tim Webb today under the headline: “Shell counts cost of oil damage in Niger Delta.” (Page 39, Thursday 31 Jan 2013). Tim correctly makes the simple, but immensely important point: “IT IS THE FIRST TIME THAT A COURT OUTSIDE NIGERIA HAS ORDERED SHELL TO PAY FOR POLLUTION IN THE DELTA AND THE RULING LEAVES IT VULNERABLE TO MORE CLAIMS.” Shell has predictably tried to downplay this historic, precedent setting verdict. read more

 From our Shell News Archive Sunday 31 October, 2004

The fallout from the Shell reserves fraud continues…

The Independent On Sunday (UK): Business View: Shell’s real location problem is finding more black stuff: “The misreporting of reserves scandal showed all the worst Shell traits – secrecy, haughtiness, inertia.”: “So what’s the hurry? Was it because Shell had to admit that it had uncovered another 900 million barrels of doubtful crude in its reserves and was likely to uncover 600 million more?”

Sunday Express (UK): Shell boardroom changes backfire on reserves news: “ONE OF the world’s most influential financial firms has given the thumbs down to an announcement from Shell it is to end its 97-year-old dual board structure.”: “…financial ratings agency Standard & Poor’s said it had adjusted Shell’s investment rating downwards to “creditwatch negative”, a status which implies there may be more bad news to come from the company.”

Mail on Sunday (UK):  Shell bosses in a charm offensive: “The Board, headed by Jeroen van der Veer, will see thousands of staff to explain the proposed changes and shore up the mood of the employees damaged by scandals over Shell’s inflated oil reserves.”: “Last week, Shell was forced to downgrade its estimates of proven oil reserves for the fifth time this year. Reserves are now a third lower than originally thought” read more

FROM OUR SHELL NEWS ARCHIVE OCTOBER 2004

The Sunday Times: The wonder fuels that don’t deliver

“In February this year the Advertising Standards Authority upheld complaints against the claims Shell was making in its adverts, including that Optimax gives “an extra burst of power just when you need it”.

By Dave Pollard of The Sunday Times

October 03, 2004

The ads claim they are wonder fuels but our test was less than impressive

It is, according to Shell, petrol “with a dash of Ferrari”. Or as BP prefers to put it, fuel with “extra oomph”. Both oil giants are piling massive marketing budgets into their premium fuels — Shell’s Optimax and BP’s Ultimate. The fuels are on sale at the same pumps as ordinary unleaded, but cost about 20p per gallon more. The companies are keen to convince you to pay. read more

By John Donovan

The Financial Times has published an article under the headline “How Shell was hijacked in ad hoax.“

Extracts

It is part of a web campaign jointly orchestrated by environmental group Greenpeace, activist organisation Yes Lab and members of the Occupy Wall Street movement to rally against Shell’s Arctic drilling programme.

The digital assault is a new type of internet campaigning. Rather than staging a protest, activist groups hijack brands and harness social media to derail a company’s image. “We’re only beginning to understand how much social media can change our society,” says James Turner of Greenpeace USA. read more

“The allegations are grave: rape, systematic and widespread torture, extrajudicial killings.”

THE SUNDAY TIMES: HAGUE TRIES TO HALT SHELL ‘MURDER’ CASE

27 May 2012

WILLIAM HAGUE has been accused of hypocrisy after the government intervened on the side of Shell, Britain’s biggest company, over court claims the oil giant was complicit in torture and murder.

The foreign secretary is facing pressure from human rights groups over Britain’s role in a case in America’s highest court being brought by the families of 12 people from Nigeria’s Ogoniland community.

The case puts Britain in conflict with President Barack Obama’s administration, which argues the families should be allowed to sue Shell over claims their relatives were tortured and killed by Nigerian troops in the Niger delta in the 1990s. read more

A Sunday Times article published in June 2001 detailed Shell/BP undercover activities including infiltration, spying and subversion operations around the world directed at perceived enemies. Contrary to The Sunday Times headline, it was not limited to “green groups”– as can be confirmed by reading the article.

CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE

By John Donovan

In a Reuters article published today, the UK company Hakluyt & Company Limited is described as “an ultra-secretive firm that is purported to spy on companies in order to gather intelligence in a more covert manner.”

A Sunday Times article published in July 2001 detailed Shell/BP undercover activities including infiltration, spying and subversion operations around the world directed at perceived enemies. Contrary to The Sunday Times headline, it was not limited to “green groups”as can be confirmed by reading the article. The clandestine activity was carried out by Hakluyt & Company Limited.
read more

The Sunday Times: Business Section Page 10: February 26, 2012

Xena’s squeeze on Voser

ROYAL DUTCH SHELL must have thought it had done the hard work when it won permits from the US government to drill for oil in Alaska.

Not so fast. There are still some fearsome opponents to be conquered, including Xena, the warrior princess. Fans of schlock TV will remember Xena, a kind of female Conan the Barbarian, who once threatened to crush a foe’s head “like a peanut between the thighs of doom”.

Last week Lucy Lawless, the Kiwi actress who played Xena, led a group of activists as they boarded a drilling rig in the port of Taranaki, New Zealand. The rig was due to sail to the Arctic to start drilling this summer. read more

The Times: 3 February 2012

Tim Webb Energy Editor

Ambitious plans to boost growth will cost too much and knock Shell off its top spot, the City warned yesterday. Unveiling disappointing results, the Anglo-Dutch oil group further unnerved investors when it said it planned to spend even more heavily on new oil and gas projects.

Analysts said that Shell would make lower returns from the huge outlays, leaving less room to raise its dividend significantly. The company, which has outperformed its rivals over the past 18 months, would struggle to maintain its position at the front of the pack, they added. read more

The release happened after Blair’s notorious “deal in the desert” with Muammar Gadaffi paving the way for multi- million-pound oil contracts with Shell and BP.

(Saif al-Islam Gadaffi – above right)

THE SUNDAY TIMES

Headline: Gadaffi son may spill British secrets

Sunday 20 November 2011

Marie Colvin and Dipesh Gadher

THE London-educated Saif al-Islam Gadaffi, 39, always denied that he played an active role in politics, but he holds the key to the secrets of his father’s despotic regime.

His trial could prove deeply embarrassing if he chooses to reveal details of his once-cosy relations with British politicians including Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson, the former business secretary.

Mohammed al-Alagi, Libya’s interim justice minister, said yesterday that Gadaffi will be placed on trial in Libya and faces the death penalty. read more

From pages 42 & 43 of “Royal Dutch Shell and its sustainability troubles” – Background report to the Erratum of Shell’s Annual Report 2010

The report was made on behalf of Milieudefensie (Friends of the Earth Netherlands)
Author: Albert ten Kate: May 2011.

In May 2005, Shell signed an agreement to start a joint venture with the Libyan National Oil Corporation. The joint venture would revamp and expand the existing liquified natural gas (LNG) Plant at Marsa el-Brega on the Libyan coast. It would also explore for gas and subsequently develop five areas totalling 20,000 square kilometres located in the heart of Libya’s Sirte Basin. Shell was committed to invest USD 637 million in the first phase of the joint venture.

Already in March 2004, Malcolm Brinded, head of exploration and production at Shell, stated: “We were in Libya in the Fifties and we were in Libya in the Eighties for an exploration programme, but for this one we came back in 2001 and so this is the culmination of discussions over that.” International sanctions on Libya were lifted in 2003 and 2004. Thus, Shell had been fishing for contracts from Gaddafi a long time before international sanctions were lifted. read more

“The drip, drip, drip of negative information has been every bit as corrosive to the company’s reputation as the oil leaking from its pipe. It was not until a week after the oil was first spotted that the company apologised.”

By John Donovan

We have printed below extensive articles published over three pages of The Sunday Times on 21 August 2011.

It was this development which sparked a number of other major news stories published the following day.

The Sunday Times approached us for our help, which we were pleased to provide over a number of days. We put the newspaper into contact with our Shell related sources, including Bill Campbell. We provided a considerable volume of information from our extensive files. We also supplied documents referred to in the article, including the letter the HSE offshore division sent to Shell on 18 July 2011, which we now put into the public domain. This was kindly supplied to us by the HSE press office.
read more

By John Donovan

We have recently received information from Shell in response to our 2011 SAR application under the Data Protection Act.

It always contains some surprises, and this time is no exception.

Unbeknown to us, Shell engaged in email correspondence in September/October 2010 with an unknown third party, a business owner, on the subject of Shell paying us a large sum to stop our campaigning focused on Shell.

The correspondence is reproduced below in chronological order, with the first email dated 25 Sept 2010. Identification information other than our surname and web domain name has been redacted by Shell.

We have good reason to believe that the person responding for Shell was Mr Richard Wiseman, Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer, Royal Dutch Shell Plc. Mr Wiseman retired a couple of months ago. read more

THE SUNDAY TIMES

Shell chief Terry Nolan is confident that despite being a decade late and three times over budget, Corrib will win over its critics

Like another oil firm in big trouble at the moment, Shell caused a lot of upset, which Nolan accepts. ‘If I was doing it all again, we would put more effort into understanding the community,’ he says

Terry Nolan, the managing director of Shell Exploration and Production (E&P) Ireland, picks up the microphone and addresses the 700 construction workers gathered at Shell’s Bellanaboy gas refinery, near Rossport on the wild northern Mayo coast.

The refinery will serve the contentious Corrib gas field, located 83km out in the Atlantic Ocean. read more

Francesca Steele: May 28, 2010

Royal Dutch Shell has agreed to buy East Resources, the US natural gas explorer, for $4.7 billion (£3.2 billion).

The Amsterdam-based oil and gas giant said that it had struck a deal with East Resources and its private equity investor Kohlberg Kravis Roberts to acquire “subsidiaries which own substantially all of the business”.

East Resources has more than 650,000 acres in the Marcellus shale, a rock formation running from West Virginia to New York, which is said to contain vast amounts of natural gas. It produces the equivalent of almost 10,000 barrels of oil a day. read more

May 19, 2010

China’s biggest energy company has agreed to take a stake in Royal Dutch Shell’s oil and gas unit in Syria in a deal estimated to be worth $1.5 billion (£1 billion).

China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) has acquired a 35 per cent interest in Syria Shell Petroleum Development.

Shell has been eager to foster closer links with China, the world’s second-biggest oil consumer after America, and to team up in exploring and producing in the Middle East.

Shell signed a 30-year deal with CNPC on Sunday for joint gas exploration and production in Qatar. read more

EXTRACT: “It is fair to conclude that Shell is allergic to criticism, and has no qualms about ruthlessly using its financial muscle to manipulate the news media, brainwash shareholders, greenwash motorists and censor critics who wish to point out the inconvenient truth.”

By John Donovan

Interesting to note the controversy over the last minute decision by the Financial Times against publishing a powerful anti-Shell advert by Amnesty International, who must be left wondering whether Shell brought some influence to bear?

I was left in the same position after The Sunday Times in 2007, aborted a half page article about us and our unique relationship with Shell.

At 11am on a Saturday morning, 3 February 2007, I received a phone call from a Sunday Times journalist, Steven Swinford. He read out the entire article to check on accuracy, particularly in respect of quotes attributed to me. Our involvement in the Sakhalin2 affair was described as the “ultimate revenge” costing Shell £11 billion UK pounds ($22 billion USD). read more

“In Washington, a fresh impetus to pursue alternative forms of energy and a renewed hostility towards Big Oil will not be directed solely at BP.”

May 5, 2010

David Wighton

The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is a tragedy — for the families of those who died, for the environment and for local communities.

It is a huge challenge for the company and its chief executive, Tony Hayward. But in cold, cash terms, is it really so bad as to warrant the £20 billion that has been wiped off BP’s market value?

The broken well, which is leaking 210,000 gallons of oil a day, could flow for a year and still be dwarfed by earlier incidents. The Ixtoc 1 blowout in Mexico’s Bay of Campeche disgorged 140 million gallons of crude into the Gulf of Mexico in 1979 before it was finally halted. Even that was a fraction of the 1991 spill when Iraqi forces allowed 36 billion gallons of crude to bleed into the Persian Gulf. read more

April 28, 2010 Robin Pagnamenta, Energy Editor

Royal Dutch Shell announced a 60 per cent increase in profits this morning, propelled by higher oil and gas prices and growth in production.

Shell, Europe’s biggest oil company, said that the current cost of supply profits, a key industry measure which strips out fluctuations in the price of energy, reached $4.8 billion in the three months to March 31, up from $3 billion a year ago.

The performance was boosted by a 6 per cent increase in the Anglo-Dutch company’s oil and gas production, which hit 3.59 million barrels per day after the ramp-up of the Sakhalin II project in Russia and Parque das Conchas in Brazil. read more

“In the draft, Shell tells Mr Blair to discuss positive progress on weapons of mass destruction as well as the investigation into the murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher outside the Libyan Embassy in London in 1984.”

David Robertson, Business Correspondent

Tony Blair lobbied Colonel Muammar Gaddafi on behalf of Shell in a letter written for him in draft form by the oil company, documents obtained by The Times reveal.

The correspondence, written while Mr Blair was Prime Minister, bears a striking resemblance to a briefing note by Royal Dutch Shell weeks earlier promoting a $500 million (£325 million) deal it was trying to clinch in Libya.

While it is common for government ministers to champion British interests abroad, Shell’s draft reveals an unusual assurance in its ability to dictate Mr Blair’s conversation with the Libyan leader. It also raises questions about the motives behind Britain’s improved relations with Libya and the subsequent release of Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber. Lockerbie victims have claimed that the Government paved the way for al-Megrahi’s release as part of a deal with Libya to give British companies access to Libya’s lucrative oil and gas industry. read more

The Times April 2, 2010

Robin Pagnamenta, Energy Editor

Marvin Odum, the chief executive of Shell’s North America business, said that Shell was “absolutely ready to drill in terms of infrastructure and manpower” in Alaska and signalled that activity could begin within ten weeks. read more

The Sunday Times: March 28, 2010

The company is expected to lodge an offer this week for a network of 800 petrol stations and the Lindsey oil refinery at Killingholme, Lincolnshire. The assets have been put up for sale by Total, the French oil group. It has hired JP Morgan, the investment bank, to sell its UK business, which employs 5,000 people. The business is expected to fetch more than £1 billion.

The prospect of the Kremlincontrolled giant owning key parts of the UK oil infrastructure could worry the government. When Gazprom was rumoured to be looking at a bid for Centrica, owner of British Gas, in 2006, ministers met to examine the “possible consequences resulting from any takeover of a major UK energy supplier”. read more

March 17, 2010: Robin Pagnamenta Energy Editor

Royal Dutch Shell will sell full or part-stakes in as many as 9,000 petrol stations worldwide and cut a further 1,000 jobs as it intensifies its global cost-cutting.

The announcement came as Shell appeared to be edging closer to a deal with Arrow Energy to bolster the group’s position in Australia’s fast-growing industry supplying coal-seam gas to China and South-East Asia.

Peter Voser, the chief executive, said that Shell intends to leave about 30 of the 90 countries in which it operates petrol stations. The move, which is already under way, is part of a focus on more profitable markets and on exploration and production. read more

Comment: cracking Shell

After seven years of year-on-year declines in oil production, Shell’s return to volume growth represents a significant turnaround for the Anglo-Dutch oil giant.

For Peter Voser, eight months in to his role as chief executive, it also reflects a new phase in the drive to rebuild the company’s fortunes.

Since his appointment last summer, he has announced plans to cut 6,000 jobs and reorganise the group to strip out costs and excessive bureaucracy.

Today he announced plans to intensify that drive by trimming a further 1,000 positions, mostly in middle management and the group’s downstream operation. read more

The company has agreed terms for a ten-year lease with Canary Wharf on 200,000 sq ft of Docklands offices

February 24, 2010

A view of the London Eye, located along the Thames River at County Hall, is seen across from the Shell Oil Centre building.

Carl Mortished, World Business Editor

Staff at Royal Dutch Shell will be moved next year from the Shell Centre at Waterloo to Canary Wharf as part of a huge redevelopment of the oil company’s historic London headquarters.

The company has agreed terms for a ten-year lease with Canary Wharf on 200,000 sq ft of Docklands offices at 40 Bank Street, a building close to the tower at One Canada Square. read more

TNK-BP and BP declined to comment yesterday on the decision from RosPrirodNadzor, which was reminiscent of the manouvering by Russian agencies that resulted in Shell losing control of its Sakhalin project in the Russian Far East in 2006.

The Times
February 17, 2010

Robin Pagnamenta and Robert Lindsay

Royal Dutch Shell said that it would freeze the salaries of its top directors and reform a generous bonus scheme as the oil giant moved to soothe shareholders’ anger over excessive boardroom pay before its annual meeting.

In a letter to investors, Hans Wijers, the new chairman of the Anglo-Dutch company’s remuneration committee, said that the changes were being made after extensive talks with shareholders, 60 per cent of whom voted down the executive pay plans at a stormy annual meeting last year. read more

TONY HAYWARD, BP’s chief executive, has set the FTSE 100 oil group on a collision course with investors and environmentalists over a blockbuster oil sands deal.

A company funded by the charitable arm of Royal Dutch Shell, the oil giant, has developed a cheap and efficient stove that it says could save carbon and lives.

PETER VOSER, chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell, is selling $10 billion (£6.4 billion) of assets as part of his drive to revitalise the oil giant.

The Times
February 13, 2010

The leaked list includes the names and telephone numbers of 170,000 staff

Robin Pagnamenta, Energy Editor

A full-scale investigation was under way last night into a security breach at Royal Dutch Shell as the oil company faced explaining to staff how the personal details of 170,000 employees and contractors had made their way on to the internet.

The Times has learnt that seven non-governmental organisations (NGOs) who were e-mailed a database of all Shell staff this month have been dragged into the row. read more

The database featured a letter that set out criticism of Shell’s activities in Nigeria

The Times
February 12, 2010
Robin Pagnamenta, Energy Editor

Royal Dutch Shell was at the centre of a major security breach last night after the names and telephone numbers of tens of thousands of the oil company’s staff were circulating freely on the internet.

The details of up to 170,000 workers and contractors linked to the company, including some workers’ addresses, were contained in a database of Shell’s global workforce. read more

From The Times
February 5, 2010

In his fascinating new book about his life and long career at BP, Lord Browne reveals he had talks with Jeroen van der Veer in 2004 about a merger with Shell.

The idea was to combine the two companies and to dispose of all BP’s refining and marketing operations. Lord Browne says it seemed “so obviously right to me and the executive team”.

But some BP directors took a different view and the proposal was never discussed by the board.

In retrospect, such a deal would not have addressed the key challenge both companies now face — access to reserves. And while Lord Browne says it would have yielded cost savings of $9 billion, results from both companies this week have shown there was huge scope for efficiency savings even without a merger. read more

The Sunday Times

Peter Hitchens, analyst at Panmure Gordon, said: “The question is, can Voser turn it round and get Shell going in the right direction? The underlying business is still in decline.”

Voser is carrying out a raft of other cost-cutting measures, including the sale of large swathes of its Nigerian oilfields, a plan revealed in The Sunday Times last month.

RELATED ARTICLES

Chinese in £3bn battle to buy Shell assets in Nigeria

Two men and a website mount vendetta against an oil giant read more

The Times

Business big shot: Simon Henry, of Royal Dutch Shell

Emma Keens

After being knocked off the top spot as Europe’s largest oil and gas producer by market capitalisation this week, Shell executives did not get much time to lick their wounds.

The Anglo-Dutch company’s shares continued their slide yesterday amid talk that it had been guiding analysts to reduce their fourth-quarter earnings forecasts by about 20 per cent. A handful of downgrades served only to fuel that fire.

One man feeling the pain more than most will be Simon Henry (right), Royal Dutch Shell group’s chief financial officer, whose first year in the role has been anything but smooth, with falling demand continuing to pummel the oil industry. read more

The men were working at the Shell-operated Afam gas and power plant east of Port Harcourt. They work for Netco Dietsmann, a venture between Nigeria’s state-owned National Engineering and Technical Company and the Dutch company Dietsmann.

What Royal Dutch Shell Plc had to say about The Sunday Times article – “Two men and a website mount vendetta against an oil giant“

“You know the background to this one. The Donovans come across well in the story”

The comment was contained in a Shell internal email sent on the day the article was published, 19 July 2009. The names of Shell employees involved in the email correspondence have been deleted to protect their identity. read more

The Times

Michael Herman

Shell and two of its contractors were fined a combined £283,000 by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) yesterday over an accident at an oil refinery that left a worker paralysed from the waist down.

The HSE said the accident at the Stanlow Manufacturing Complex at Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, in 2007, in which a 500-kilogram container fell 30ft on to a walkway, was “totally avoidable”. The container of waste material landed on Stephen Rizzotti, 42 — who was employed by a Shell contractor as a manager at the refinery — breaking his back, pelvis and both legs, and leaving him wheelchair-bound. read more

Peter Voser, the chief executive who took over in July, has launched a huge restructuring, which includes substantial staff cuts. The company’s shares have a 5.8% dividend yield that provides a good support for the price.

Documents released by Royal Dutch Shell Plc under the Data Protection Act to John Donovan, a prominent critic of the world’s largest oil company, show that Shell does not deny that his intervention in the Sakhalin2 project in Russia cost Shell billions – according to the Sunday Times – $22 billion.

Shell internal correspondence from December 2006 to March 2007 reveal that Shell was concerned that:

“…the Sunday Times has picked up the Sakhalin/drilling leaked e-mail story from Donovan’s website, They are responding with agree Os and As that have been used previously with the Guardian, but are first trying to kill the story by pointing out that is old news – slim chance that this will work.” read more

Two Chinese government-controlled companies are among front-runners in a £3 billion battle for control of oil assets in Nigeria that have been put up for sale by Royal Dutch Shell.

The Sunday Times

Royal Dutch Shell, the oil giant, has launched a shake-up of its controversial operations in Nigeria by offering oilfields valued at up to $5 billion (£3.1 billion) for sale.

The auction comes as Nigeria prepares to impose harsher terms on foreign operators next month and hand greater control to domestic firms.

Shell is the biggest western oil firm in Nigeria, the world’s tenth largest producer, and has had operations there for 70 years.

It is understood that the company recently launched a formal sales process that is being overseen by Ann Pickard, head of Shell Nigeria. read more

Three British companies — BP, Cairn Energy and BG Group — are among the bidders, alongside companies such as Royal Dutch Shell, Total and Gazprom. Competition is expected to be fierce and the groups were reluctant to reveal which fields they wanted.

The Times

December 3, 2009 read more

Royal Dutch Shell is hopeful that it will gain an equity stake in a giant Russian gas field that could supply all of the world’s needs for a decade. Peter Voser, Shell’s chief executive, said that talks with the Russian government about the Yamal project in the Siberian Arctic were progressing well.

Lord Myners, the City Minister, and other politicians have urged shareholders to engage with errant companies more actively, prompting a rash of protests over pay at blue-chip companies such as Royal Dutch Shell, BP and Royal Bank of Scotland.

The Sunday Times

November 8, 2009

SHELL MINDLESS AND MISGUIDED

Marc Horne

SHELL, the oil giant, is facing a boycott of its products by armed forces veterans after it banned poppy appeal collections at its petrol stations.

Veterans will this week discuss organising an embargo in protest at the Anglo-Dutch company’s refusal to allow poppies to be sold on its forecourts.

Shell Retail, which operates more than 1,000 service stations in the UK, imposed the ban because, it says, it already contributes to a number of charities, including Macmillan Cancer Relief, the RSPCA and Motability. read more

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has fined UBS £8 million for weak controls that allowed staff in its private bank to make thousands of unauthorised trades with clients’ money and then hide the losses. It is the third-largest fine awarded by the FSA.