Dutch court orders Shell to pay Nigerian farmers for oil spills
AFP 29/01/2021 12:41
A Dutch court on Friday ordered Shell to pay compensation in a long-running case brought by four Nigerian farmers who accuse the oil giant of causing widespread pollution.

After 13 years of legal battles, an appeals court in The Hague ruled that Shell’s Nigerian branch must pay out for oil spills on land in two villages.

It also held the Anglo-Dutch parent company, Royal Dutch Shell, liable for installing new pipeline equipment to prevent further devastating spills in the Niger Delta region.

“The court ruled that Shell Nigeria is liable for the damage caused by the spills. Shell Nigeria is sentenced to compensate farmers for damages,” judge Sierd Schaafsma said.

The amount of damages would be determined later, the court said. It did not specify how many of the four farmers would receive compensation.

The case — backed by the Netherlands arm of environment group Friends of the Earth — has dragged on so long that two of the Nigerian farmers have died since it was first filed.

“Tears of joy here. After 13 years, we’ve won,” Friends of the Earth tweeted.

Shell Nigeria said it was “disappointed” by the verdict.

– ‘Environmental damage’ –

The farmers first sued Shell over pollution in their villages Goi, Oruma and Ikot Ada Udo, in southeastern Nigeria in 2008.

A lower court in the Netherlands found in 2013 that Shell should pay compensation for one leak but that Shell’s parent company could not be held liable in a Dutch court for the actions of its Nigerian subsidiary.

But in 2015 the Hague appeals court ruled that Dutch courts did indeed have jurisdiction in the case.

On Friday, the court ruled that Shell Nigeria must pay compensation for the leaks at Goi and Oruma.

“In the Uruma cases, Shell Nigeria and… Royal Dutch Shell are ordered to equip the pipeline with a leak detection system so that environmental damage can be limited in the future,” the court said.

Shell Nigeria should have shut down oil supplies on the day of the spill in the cases in Goi, it said.

The court said it needed more time to resolve the case of Ikot Ada Udo, saying that the leak was due to sabotage but it was not clear whether Shell could still be held liable for it, and for cleaning up.

At a hearing last year lawyers for the farmers showed gushing and burning oil spills as well as villagers dragging their hands through water sources, their hands streaked with the substance afterwards.

– ‘Years of devastation’ –

“We are happy about the ruling. It shows that our people can get justice for the years of devastation of our environment by Shell,” King Emere Godwin Bebe Okpabi, ruler of the Ogale Community in the Niger Delta, told AFP.

“It’s a great relief for the people of the Niger Delta that Shell has been made accountable for its injustice against the oil-producing communities.”

Shell has always blamed all of the spills on sabotage and said it has cleaned up with due care where pollution has occurred.

“We continue to believe that the spills in Oruma and Goi were the result of sabotage,” Shell in Nigeria said in a statement.

“We are therefore disappointed that this court has made a different finding on the cause of these spills and in its finding that SPDC (Shell Nigeria) is liable.”

Nigeria was the world’s ninth-largest oil producer in 2018, pumping out volumes valued at some $43.6 billion (37 billion euros), or 3.8 percent of total global production.

In a separate case in the Netherlands, the widows of four Nigerian activists executed by the military regime in the 1990s have accused Shell of complicity in their deaths.

Shell also faces a landmark legal bid to force it to meet emissions targets in the Paris climate accords, brought by several environmental groups in the Netherlands led by Friends of the Earth in 2019.

Mynd44, lalasticlala.

Good post Op. I checked two pages on NL. You get the credit for breaking the news.

Shell Nigeria ordered to pay compensation for oil spills
Published 1 hour ago

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-55853024

How oil spills are devastating Nigeria's Bayelsa State
A Dutch appeals court has ruled that the Nigerian branch of oil giant Shell is responsible for damage caused by leaks in the Niger Delta.

The court ordered Shell Nigeria to pay compensation to Nigerian farmers, while the subsidiary and its Anglo-Dutch parent company were told to install equipment to prevent future damage.

The case was launched in 2008 by four Nigerian farmers, who alleged widespread pollution on their land.

The ruling can be appealed against.

Shell had argued that saboteurs were responsible for the leaks. But the court said the company had not proven "beyond reasonable doubt" that this was the case, rather than poor maintenance.

"This makes Shell Nigeria responsible for the damage caused by the leaks" in the villages of Goi and Oruma, the court said. It added that the amount of compensation would be "determined at a later stage".

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Royal Dutch Shell said it was "disappointed" with the verdict.

"We continue to believe that the spills in Oruma and Goi were the result of sabotage," it said in a statement.

The farmers' case was backed by environmental group Friends of the Earth.

"Tears of joy here. After 13 years, we've won," the group's Dutch branch tweeted following the ruling.

Good news but.....

This decision should be coming from the Nigerian supreme Court, afterall, shell operates within its territorial influence. How come it takes another country thousands of miles away to make a decision that should be enforced in Nigeria?

In other words, shell will go Scott free if the Dutch authorities didn't rule in the farmer's favour ? Do we have a government at all?

Naija.

Dutch court orders Shell to pay Nigerian farmers over oil spills
Court of Appeal in The Hague rules the multinational’s Nigerian subsidiary must payout over a 2008 case.

A Dutch court has ordered the Nigerian subsidiary of Shell to pay compensation over oil spills in Nigeria’s Niger Delta, a ruling which could pave the way for more cases against multinational oil firms.

The Court of Appeal in The Hague on Friday ruled that the Nigerian arm of the British-Dutch company must issue payouts over a long-running civil case involving four Nigerian farmers who were seeking compensation, and a clean-up, from the company over pollution caused by leaking oil pipelines.

It held Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary liable for two leaks that spewed oil over an area of a total of about 60 football pitches in two villages, saying that it could not be established “beyond a reasonable doubt” that saboteurs were to blame.

The Hague appeals court ruled that sabotage was to blame for an oil leak in another village; however, it said that the issue of whether Shell can be held liable “remains open” and the case will be continued as the court wants clarification about the extent of the pollution and whether it still has to be cleaned up.

Under Nigerian law, which was applied in the Dutch civil case, the company is not liable if the leaks were the result of sabotage.

“Shell Nigeria is sentenced to compensate farmers for damages,” the court said in its ruling, which can be appealed via the Dutch Supreme Court.

The amount of compensation will be established at a later date. The court did not specify how many of the four farmers would receive compensation.

The court did not hold Shell’s parent company, which is headquartered in the Netherlands, directly responsible.

However, it ruled that Shell’s parent company and its Nigerian subsidiary must fit a leak-detection system to a pipeline that caused one of the spills.

Although only Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary was found responsible, the decision could pave the way for more environmental cases against the company.

Al Jazeera’s Ahmed Idris, reporting from the Nigerian capital, Abuja, said the verdict would be greeted with “relief and joy” by farmers in Nigeria and could “open the floodgates” for many other similar cases.

“Hundreds of people have queued up to sue shell for contaminating the Niger Delta,” Idris said, citing cases brought against Shell in the UK and the Netherlands.

“I spoke to an activist a short while ago who said, ‘This is just the beginning’, and a lot of analysts also believe it [the ruling] will open the floodgates to so many litigations against oil production companies that have been operating in Nigeria.”

‘Tears of joy’
The case was initiated in 2008 by the farmers and the Friends of the Earth campaign group, who were seeking reparations for lost income from contaminated land and waterways in the Niger Delta region, the heart of the Nigerian oil industry.

The spills concerned were between 2004 and 2007, but pollution from leaking oil pipelines remains a big problem in the Niger Delta.

“Tears of joy here. After 13 years, we’ve won,” the Dutch branch of Friends of the Earth tweeted following Friday’s ruling.

Donald Pols, head of the NGO’s Dutch branch, described the court’s decision as “fantastic news for the environment and people living in developing countries”.

“It means people in developing countries can take on the multinationals who do them harm,” he said.

Shell argued that saboteurs were responsible for leaks in underground oil pipes that have polluted the delta. The company also argued that it should not be held legally responsible in the Netherlands for the actions of a foreign subsidiary, meaning Shell Nigeria.

Shell said in a statement following the ruling that it continues to believe the spills were caused by sabotage, adding it was dismayed that the firm’s Nigerian subsidy – the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC) – was judged to be culpable.
“We are … disappointed that this court has made a different finding on the cause of these spills and in its finding that SPDC is liable,” the company said.

The Nigerian subsidiary added: “Like all Shell-operated ventures globally, we are committed to operating safely and protecting the local environment.”

Shell discovered and started exploiting Nigeria’s vast oil reserves in the late 1950s and has faced heavy criticism from activists and local communities over spills and for the company’s close ties to government security forces

Friends of the Earth, which has supported the Nigerian farmers in their legal battle, argues that leaking pipes are caused by poor maintenance and inadequate security and that Shell does not do enough to clean up spills.




Leaking oil pipelines are a big problem in the Niger Delta region, the heart of the Nigerian oil industry [File: Sunday Alamba/AP Photo]

What's the outcome of Today's court case?

God is about to transform some people's lives forever.

Come to think of it, Nigeria and its leaders take a lot of NONSENSE from the IOCs. Shell wouldn't try some things it does in Nigeria in more serious countries like the US, UK and the Netherlands.

I remember that the BP fed the locals for months and still paid huge sums in damages during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

If it had been Nigeria, the story would have been different. Niger Delta people have paid direly for being a part of a failed project (Nigeria), and I consider them the biggest losers of one Nigeria.

This classic Nollywood film should be shown in every classroom in Naija!
Art imitates life!


Liquid Black Gold 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYzJVziQW-M


Liquid Black Gold 2


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jct8Ip7TYvI

pansophist:
Good news but.....

This decision should be coming from the Nigerian supreme Court, afterall, shell operates within its territorial influence. How come it takes another country thousands of miles away to make a decision that should be enforced in Nigeria?

In other words, shell will go Scott free if the Dutch authorities didn't rule in the farmer's favour ? Do we have a government at all?

Naija.

Nigeria is a lawless place. Rather than the men to enforce laws for the betterment of the populace, they make innocent citizens to depend on the judgment from a country deep into debauchery and police their women's sexuality at home.