Justice: Shell pays Nigerian farmers €15m compensation for environmental pollution

*The Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited, operator of SPDC Joint Venture, discloses it will pay 15 million Euros for benefit of the affected communities and individual claimants

*Companies will no longer get away with pollution and ignore human rights

Isola Moses | ConsumerConnect

The Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC), operator of the SPDC joint venture, Friday, December 23, 2022, said it would pay €15 million (Euros) to Nigerian farmers to compensate them for damage from pipeline leaks.

It is recalled that following 13 years of legal battles, a Dutch appeals court, in 2021, had ruled that Shell’s Nigerian branch must pay out for a series of spills, and that the parent company must install new pipeline equipment to prevent further devastating leaks in the Niger Delta region.

Shell, on Friday, in a statement, noted the International Oil Company (IOC) had reached a deal with the Dutch environmental group Milieudefensie that had helped the affected communities.

The IOC stated: “Under the settlement, the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC), as operator of the SPDC joint venture, will pay an amount of EUR 15 million for the benefit of the communities and the individual claimants.”

Shell’s compensation deal is also said to have affirmed the installation of a leak detection system on 20 pipeline segments in accordance with the Dutch court ruling, and that remediation work has been completed.

SPDC agrees to compensate farmers but ‘no admission of liability’

In spite of acknowledging that the settlement follows up on the Dutch court ruling, the oil firm said the agreement “is on a no admission of liability basis, and settles all claims and ends all pending litigation related to the spills.”

Previously, four Nigerian farmers and fishermen had sued Shell in The Netherlands to pay for cleaning up spills from its pipelines in the Niger Delta region of the West African country.

Milieudefensie, the Dutch branch of Friends of the Earth, aided the farmers to push their case.

Shell has always attributed pollution to sabotage l, and said it had cleaned up affected areas, according to report.

The legal battle has lasted so long that the original farmers are all dead now, but their survivors and the affected communities kept hope of securing justice alive as they pushed on.

Eric Dooh, one of the current plaintiffs, said: “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.”

Milieudefensie’s Director Donald Pols also commented that the settlement would allow the plaintiffs and their communities to finally get on with their lives.

However, Pols said it also has a wider significance.

He stated: “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.

“Now they can be called to account,” said Milieudefensie’s Director.

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