Shell Sued in U.K. Over ’Massive’ 2008 Nigerian Oil Spills

Source: Bloomberg News

A unit of Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA), Europe’s largest oil company, was sued in Britain by 11,000 Nigerians who say their land, rivers and wetlands were spoiled by two “massive” spills in the Niger River delta in 2008.

The lawsuit against Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary was filed in London today by residents of the coastal Bodo community after talks failed to produce a deal, the group’s law firm Leigh Day & Co. said in a statement. While Shell admits liability for the leaks, it claims local people spilled most of the oil.

“The spills have caused extensive and long-lasting devastation to the claimant’s lands and fishing waters and have a profoundly detrimental impact on the life of the community,” the lawyer for the Nigerians, Martyn Day, said in court papers.

The lawsuit, claiming a leak of 500,000 barrels, comes two months after Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan said he would seek compensation from Shell, based in The Hague, for the country’s worst offshore spill in more than a decade -- a leak in December of nearly 40,000 barrels of oil at the company’s Bonga field off Nigeria’s coast.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-23/shell-sued-in-u-k-over-massive-oil-spills-in-nigeria-in-2008.html

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In 2009, Shell settled an American federal court case for $15.5 million over the 1995 death of Nigerian author Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was among several activists killed by the Nigerian military government then.