Credit: Reuters
A Dutch court ruled on Wednesday
that Royal Dutch Shell's Nigerian subsidiary was responsible for a case of oil
pollution in the Niger Delta and ordered it to pay damages in a decision that
could open the door to further litigation.
The district court in The Hague said
Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Ltd. (SPDC), a wholly-owned
subsidiary, must compensate one farmer, but dismissed four other claims filed
against the Dutch parent company.
Four Nigerians and campaign group
Friends of the Earth filed suits in 2008 in The Hague, where Shell has its
global headquarters, seeking reparations for lost income from contaminated land
and waterways in the Niger Delta region, the heart of the Nigerian oil
industry.
The case was seen by environmental
activists as a test for holding multinationals responsible for offences at
foreign subsidiaries, and legal experts said other Nigerians affected by
pollution might now be able to sue in the Netherlands.
Shell said the case would not set a
precedent because its parent company was not held responsible.
The farmer who won compensation, 52-year-old father of 12 Friday Akpan, said he was very happy with the judgment because it would allow him to repay his debts.
"I am not surprised at the
decision because there was divine intervention in the court. The spill damaged
47 fishing ponds, killed all the fish and rendered the ponds useless," he
told Reuters in the Niger Delta city of Port Harcourt.
"Since then I have been living
by God's grace and on the help of good Samaritans. I think this will be a
lesson for Shell and they will know not to damage people's livelihoods."
New Avenue:
A legal expert said the ruling could
make it possible for other Nigerians who say they also suffered losses due to
Shell's activities to file lawsuits in the Netherlands.
"The fact that a subsidiary has
been held responsible by a Dutch court is new and opens new avenues," said
Menno Kamminga, professor of international law at Maastricht University.
The court did not just examine the
role of the parent company, but also looked "at abuses committed by Shell
Nigeria, where the link with the Netherlands is extremely limited," he
said. "That's a real breakthrough."
Friends of the Earth spokesman Geert Ritsema said they would appeal against the acquittals "because there is still a lot of oil lying around. These sites need to be cleaned."
Ritsema said hundreds of other
Nigerians in the village of Icot Ada Udo, where farmer Friday Akpan lives, can
now take similar legal action.
The court backed Shell's argument
that the spills were caused by sabotage and not poor maintenance of its
facilities, as had been argued by the Nigerians.
Ritsema said it was also knew that
an oil company was being held responsible for failing to prevent sabotage.
There were 198 oil spills at Shell
facilities in the Niger Delta last year, releasing around 26,000 barrels of
oil, according to data from the company. The firm says 161 of these spills were
caused by sabotage or theft, while 37 incidents were caused by operational
failure. Local communities say Shell under reports the amount of barrels
spilled.
People who live in the Niger Delta
say their land, water and fisheries have been blighted for years by oil
pollution and activists have called for oil companies in Nigeria to be held to
the same standard as elsewhere in the world.
Shell is facing ongoing legal action
brought in a UK court on behalf of 11,000 members of the Niger Delta Bodo
community, who say the company is responsible for spilling 500,000 barrels in
2008. Shell has admitted liability for two spills in the Bodo region but
estimates the amount spilled is far lower. Bodo's case could be heard in the
High Court in London next year.
A United Nations report in 2011 on
the Ogoniland region in the Niger Delta criticized Shell and other
multinationals, and the Nigerian government, for 50 years of oil pollution.
It said Ogoniland, where Shell no
longer operates, needed the world's biggest-ever oil clean-up, which would take
25 years and cost an initial $1 billion.
A decade of militancy by armed
groups in the Niger Delta, which had its origins in local anger over oil
pollution, shut down nearly half of Nigeria's oil output until an amnesty in
2009. The Niger Delta is home to about 31 million people.
Compensation To Be Negotiated:
"We will pay compensation. We
didn't lose the case. It was not operational failure. The leak was the
consequence of sabotage," Royal Dutch Shell's vice president for
environment, Allard Castelein, said in comments after the verdict was read.
"Shell Nigeria should and could
have prevented this sabotage in an easy way," the court ruling said.
"This is why the district court has sentenced Shell Nigeria to pay damages
to the Nigerian plaintiff."
Castelein said Shell would negotiate
the amount of damages with the farmer, but that an appeal could postpone the
outcome of those talks.
The Nigerians - fishermen and
farmers - said they could no longer feed their families because the region had
been polluted by oil from Shell's pipelines and production facilities.
The pollution is a result of oil
spills in 2004, 2005 and 2007, they said.
It is the first time a
Dutch-registered company has been sued in a domestic court for offences alleged
to have been carried out by a foreign subsidiary.
The suit targeted Shell's parent
company in the Netherlands and its Nigerian subsidiary, which operates a joint
venture between the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Shell, Total
E&P Nigeria Limited and Nigerian Agip Oil Company Limited.
Shell Nigeria is the largest oil and
gas company in Nigeria, Africa's top energy producer, with an output of more
than 1 million barrels of oil or equivalent per day.
In October, Shell lawyers said the
company has played its part in cleaning up the Delta, which accounts for more
than 50 percent of Nigeria's oil exports.
