Shell lodges Nigeria oil spill matter at World Bank

Royal Dutch Shell Plc along with its Nigerian subsidiary, Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), has launched arbitration proceedings against the government over a long-running dispute with a Rivers community. The oil major's Netherlands-registered holding company and SPDC has filed the case at the World Bank's International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes. THISDAY reports that the Washington-based World Bank dispute resolution body indicated that the hearing of the case (Shell Petroleum NV and The Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited v Federal Republic of Nigeria) is pending. It said Shell brought its claim against Nigeria under the bilateral investment treaty between the Governments of the Netherlands and Nigeria. This after the energy giant's last year failed to reverse a court order instructing the company to pay compensation to a community for polluting its land. While the complainants say they are now owed more than $479m, Shell contests that valuation and denies being responsible for the decades-old oil spill. As previously reported in Legalbrief Today, the UK Supreme Court on Friday allowed a group of 42 500 Nigerian farmers and fishermen to sue Royal Dutch Shell in English courts after years of oil spills in the Niger Delta contaminated land and groundwater. The judges said 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.