A Dutch court ruled on Wednesday that Royal Dutch
Shell can be held partially responsible for pollution in the Niger Delta in
southern Nigeria, saying the company should have prevented sabotage at one of
its facilities.
The district court in The Hague ordered Shell to
pay unspecified damages to one farmer, but dismissed four other claims filed
against the Dutch parent company.
Four Nigerians and interest group Friends of the
Earth filed the suit in 2008 in the Netherlands, where Shell has its global
headquarters, seeking reparations for lost income from contaminated land and
waterways in the Niger Delta region.
The court backed Shell’s argument that the spills
were caused by sabotage and not poor maintenance of its facilities, as had been
argued by the Nigerians.
“Shell Nigeria should and could have prevented this
sabotage in an easy way,” the ruling said.
“This is why the district court has sentenced Shell
Nigeria to pay damages to the Nigerian plaintiff.”
The Nigerians said they could no longer feed their
families because the region had been polluted by oil from Shell’s pipelines and
production facilities.
The pollution is a result of oil spills in 2004,
2005 and 2007, they said.
It is the first time a Dutch-registered company has
been sued in a domestic court for offences allegedly carried out by a foreign
subsidiary.
Shell Happy With Judgement
The company reacting to the judgement afterwards
said “it was “happy” with a verdict issued by a Dutch district court, which
acquitted it of the bulk of pollution charges filed by Nigerian farmers”.
The court said “its wholly owned subsidiary Shell
Nigeria was responsible for oil spills but that they had been caused by sabotage,
not poor maintenance of its facilities”.
No comments:
Post a Comment