(Adds context)
By Julia Payne and Kirstin Ridley
LONDON, Feb 12 (Reuters) - The UK Supreme Court on Friday
allowed a group of 42,500 Nigerian farmers and fishermen to sue
Royal Dutch Shell (RDS) in English courts after years
of oil spills in the Niger Delta contaminated land and
groundwater.
Senior judges said UK-domiciled Shell, one of the world's
biggest energy companies, did have a common law duty of care, in
the latest case to test whether multinationals can be held to
account for the acts of overseas subsidiaries.
The ruling comes almost two years after a seminal ruling by
the Supreme Court in a case involving mining company Vedanta.
The judgment allowed nearly 2,000 Zambian villagers to sue
Vedanta in England for alleged pollution in Africa.
That move was seen as a victory for rural communities
seeking to hold parent companies accountable for environmental
disasters. Vedanta ultimately settled out of court in January.
Nigeria's Ogale and Bille communities allege their lives and
health have suffered because repeated oil spills have
contaminated the land, swamps, groundwater and waterways and
that there has been no adequate cleaning or remediation.
Represented by law firm Leigh Day, they argued that Shell
owed them a duty of care because it either had significant
control of, and was responsible for, its subsidiary SPDC. Shell
countered that the court had no jurisdiction to try the claims.
“(The ruling) also represents a watershed moment in the
accountability of multinational companies. Increasingly
impoverished communities are seeking to hold powerful corporate
actors to account and this judgment will significantly increase
their ability to do so," Daniel Leader, partner at Leigh Day,
said.
SPDC is the operator of oil pipelines in a joint venture
between the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation which holds
a 55% stake, Shell which holds 30%, France's Total
with 10%, Italy's Eni with 5%.
Shell has blamed sabotage for oil spills. It said in its
annual report published last March that SPDC, which produces
around 1 million barrels of oil per day, saw crude oil spills
caused by theft or pipeline sabotage surge by 41% in 2019.
The ruling is the second loss for Shell this year regarding
claims against its Nigerian operations. In a landmark Dutch
ruling two weeks ago, an appeals court held Shell responsible
for multiple oil pipeline leaks in the Niger Delta and ordered
it to pay unspecified damages to farmers, in a victory for
environmentalists.
(Reporting by Julia Payne and Kirstin Ridley; editing by John
Stonestreet, William Maclean)
