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LAW PRACTICE • Jun. 09, 2009

Shell Settles Human Rights Lawsuit

By Evan George
Daily Journal Staff Writer

Royal Dutch/Shell Co. and its Nigerian subsidiary agreed Monday to pay $15.5 million to settle allegations the oil company was complicit in the torture, killing and other abuses of Nigerian activists in the mid-1990s, human rights activists announced on Monday.

The settlement came days before trial was set to begin in U.S. District Court in New York, but more than a decade after family members of those killed filed the lawsuit.

"It is one of the largest human right settlements in an Alien Tort Statute case," said Paul Hoffman, trial counsel on the case and a partner at Schonbrun DeSimone Seplow Harris and Hoffman in Venice. That 1789 federal statute allows foreigners to sue in U.S. courts over alleged human rights abuses abroad.

Representatives for Shell did not respond to calls seeking comment.

The Shell case called, Wiwa v. Shell, was all the more hotly watched because it followed on the heels of a similar suit brought in San Francisco against Chevron Corp., which the oil company won handily in 2008.

The Chevron case was rare because few Alien Tort cases end up in trial. Although others have ended in settlements, often the terms are kept confidential.

The oil companies have firmly denied they are responsible for violent actions taken by contracted companies in other countries. In the case of Chevron, the company also argued the injured Nigerians were actually violent invaders who attacked the company's operation.

The case against Shell stemmed from three lawsuits against the parent company and its subsidiary, as well as the former manager of the subsidiary Bryan Anderson. The plaintiffs alleged the company was complicit in murder by hanging, and other abuses of a group of non-violent activists led by Ken Saro-Wiwa from the Ogoni region of the Niger Delta.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs, which included the Center for Constitutional Rights and EarthRights International, said $5 million of the total settlement would go to creating a trust to benefit the Ogoni people. The other $10.5 million will be split among the 10 named plaintiffs and cover attorneys' fees.

The settlement is only on behalf of the plaintiffs' individual claims and does not resolve outstanding issues between Shell and the Ogoni people, the attorneys said. Hoffman said pending claims against Shell, and other major corporations abroad, could be boosted by the agreement.

"With every settlement the foundation of bringing these cases becomes stronger," he said, "and allows human rights plaintiff to hold corporations accountable for their complicity in human rights violations."

evan_george@dailyjournal.com

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