In order to make up for the harm caused by pipeline breaches, Shell announced on Friday that it will give 15 million euros to Nigerian farmers. Shell also disclosed that it had made a settlement with the Dutch environmental organisation Milieudefensie that had helped the impacted neighbourhoods.
After 13 years of legal disputes, a Dutch appeals court decided last year that Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary must make amends for a number of leaks and that the parent corporation must put new pipeline equipment in place to stop further catastrophic spills.
The SPDC joint venture’s operator, The Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Ltd (SPDC), said in a statement: “Under the settlement, SPDC will pay an amount of EUR 15 million for the benefit of the communities and the individual claimants.”
The agreement also attests to the completion of remedial work and the installation of a leak detection system on 20 pipeline segments in accordance with the Dutch court’s order.
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The oil company acknowledged that the settlement implements the Dutch court’s decision but insisted that it “is on a no admission of liability basis, pays all claims, and terminates all current litigation relating to the incidents.”
To recover costs for cleaning up leaks from its pipelines in the Niger Delta, four farmers and fishermen from Nigeria sued Shell in the Netherlands. They received assistance from Milieudefensie, the Friends of the Earth Dutch chapter.
Shell has consistently linked sabotage to pollution and claimed to have cleaned up the damaged areas.
The initial farmers lost their lives as a result of the protracted court dispute, but their surviving families and the afflicted areas persisted.
“It is a great relief to all of us that after the years of legal battle with Shell, we will soon be recipients of this money as compensation for all we have lost,” claimed one of the current claimants, Eric Dooh.
The settlement, according to Donald Pols, director of Milieudefensie, will allow the plaintiffs and their communities to finally move on with their lives, but it also has larger implications.
“If we look at the court case as a whole, the major gain is that a new standard has been set: companies will no longer be able to get away with pollution and with ignoring human rights,” he stated.
