UK High Court ruling strengthens poor countries hand against oil giants’ pollution

Aspiring oil-producing developing countries like Guyana would do well to pay close interest to last Friday’s decision by Britain’s Supreme Court that clears the way for a group of Nigerian farmers to sue the Anglo-Dutch oil company, Royal Dutch Shell PLC, over pollution in a region of Nigeria where the energy giant operates an oil recovery subsidiary.

The ruling in the British courts asserts that Shell may owe a “duty to care” to the more than 40,000 members of Nigeria’s Ogale and Bille communities and that the claimants have the legal authority to sue the Royal Dutch subsidiary in the British courts.

In 2015 the communities moved to the courts in the UK alleging that extensive water and soil contamination had resulted from decades of oil spills and that these occurrences have negatively impacted the lives of thousands of people in the Niger River Delta, where the Shell subsidiary has operated for decades.

Royal Dutch Shell, reportedly, has officially taken the position that it is not responsible. Beyond the claim by the Nigerian community itself, the long-running case has reportedly been closely monitored in other countries possibly at risk of experiencing the same eventuality in order to determine whether its outcome might have implications with regard to whether large corporations can be sued in the UK for activities of its foreign subsidiaries.

The lawsuit by the Nigerian community was brought to the UK after the claimants had said that corruption in the Nigerian courts may not allow for justice to be served. Shell has reportedly asserted that the courts in the UK lacked the jurisdiction to hear the case.

Back in 2017 the High Court in the UK had ruled that the parent company, Royal Dutch Shell, was not legally responsible and that the claim against its subsidiary, Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria, should therefore not be heard in the UK courts. The Court of Appeal’s concurrence with that decision, triggered an appeal by the Nigerian claimants to the High Court in the UK and the final decision. Beyond the implications of the UK Supreme Court ruling for the Nigerian claimants, a representative for the British law firm representing the claimants was quoted as saying that the judgment “represents a watershed moment in the accountability of multinational companies,” in circumstances where “impoverished communities are seeking to hold powerful corporate actors to account.”

The UK ruling reportedly comes a fortnight after a Dutch Appeal Court ordered Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary to compensate farmers in two villages for damage to their land caused by leaks in 2004 and 2005. That decision can be appealed to the Dutch Supreme Court.

DTC. 2020

2020