At the London High Court, more than 11,000 Nigerians from the oil-producing Niger Delta have filed a suit for compensation against Shell.
The latest development in a case that will test whether multinational corporations can be held liable for the deeds of their foreign subsidiaries is the lawsuit filed on Thursday by the UK law firm Leigh Day.
After years of oil spills had contaminated the land and groundwater, the UK Supreme Court permitted a group of 42,500 Nigerian farmers and fishermen to sue Shell in English courts in 2021.
According to the judges at the time, one of the largest energy companies in the world, Shell, could be held accountable for the incident because it had significant control over its Nigerian subsidiary, SPDC.
On Thursday, Leigh Day said it had filed claims on behalf of 11,317 people and 17 institutions including churches and schools from the Ogale community in the Niger Delta for compensation for loss of livelihoods and damage against Shell.
Leigh Day said the claim from Ogale adds to one brought by members of the Bille community in 2015. That brings the total number of villagers seeking compensation from Shell to 13,652.
The claims said oil spills resulting from Shell’s operations in the Niger Delta have destroyed farms, contaminated drinking water and harmed aquatic life. The average life expectancy in the region is 41 years, 10 years lower than the national average.
“The next stage in the case is for a case management hearing to be set in Spring 2023, ahead of the full trial which is likely to occur the following year,” Leigh Day said in a statement.
A Shell spokesperson said the majority of spills related to the Ogale and Bille claims were caused by illegal third-party interference, including pipeline sabotage but that SPDC would continue cleaning affected areas.
“We believe litigation does little to address the real problem in the Niger Delta: oil spills due to crude oil theft, illegal refining and sabotage, with which SPDC is constantly faced and which cause the most environmental damage,” the spokesperson said.
Oil spills, sometimes due to vandalism or corrosion, are common in the Niger Delta, a vast maze of creeks and mangrove swamps crisscrossed by pipelines and blighted by poverty, pollution and oil-fuelled corruption.
In 2020 and 2021, Nigeria’s National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) recorded 822 combined oil spills, totalling 28,003 barrels of oil spewed into the environment.
SPDC was culpable for most of them, residents said, but the company has often blamed sabotage for the spills.