Shell reprieved over Nigeria spill claims

Members of the Ogale and Bille communities of the Niger Deta had applied for the case to be heard in Britain

ABritish court yesterday blocked pollution claims against Anglo-Dutch energy giant Shell by more than 40,000 Niger Delta residents demanding action over decades of oil spills in the region.

Members of the Ogale and Bille communities had applied for the case to be heard in Britain, arguing they could not get justice in Nigeria.

But the High Court in London said it did not have jurisdiction in the case.

“Our community is disappointed but not discouraged by this judgement,” King Emere Godwin Bebe Okpabi, ruler of the Ogale community, said in a statement.

The firm’s lawyer Peter Goldsmith told judge Peter Fraser during a hearing in November that the cases concerned “fundamentally Nigerian issues”, and should not be heard in London.

However, Daniel Leader from legal firm Leigh Day, representing the claimants, responded that the spills had “blighted the lives of the thousands”. He said they had “no choice” other than to seek legal redress in London.

Defence argument

Goldsmith also argued that the case involves Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary SPDC, which runs a joint venture with the Nigerian government. He claimed that the case was aimed at establishing the High Court’s jurisdiction over SPDC, opening the door for further claims.

Leigh Day had argued that Shell was “ultimately responsible for failing to ensure that its Nigerian subsidiary operates without causing environmental devastation”.

SPDC claims the pollution in Ogale and Bille is due to “crude oil theft, pipeline sabotage and illegal refining”.