[Corp. Watch] Big Oil's blood money is just another cost of doing business

[Corporation Watch]

Shell's Self-Serving "Humanitarian" Gesture

by Phil Mattera

(Dirt Diggers Digest, June 11) -- One of the advantages for a  
corporation in resolving a sensitive lawsuit out of court is that it  
can proclaim innocence and insist it is settling for other reasons.

	Royal Dutch Shell has done just that in a case brought in connection  
with the 1995 execution of author Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other  
activists who campaigned against the oil company's operations in the  
Niger River Delta region of Nigeria.

	Shell actually was even more brazenly self-serving than the typical  
company that says it is settling in order to put the case behind it.  
The Anglo-Dutch transnational insisted that its willingness to pay the  
plaintiffs $15.5 million -- $5 million of which will go into a trust  
fund for the Ogoni people who live in the region -- was a  
"humanitarian gesture."

	It was unusual for Shell to allow the amount of the settlement to be  
disclosed, but it was apparently worth it to draw attention away from  
the lawsuit's charges that the company collaborated with the  
repressive military regime that ruled Nigeria in the 1990s and put  
Saro-Wiwa and the others to death after a sham trial.

	The suit -- brought in U.S. federal court under the Alien Tort Claims  
Act, the Torture Victim Protection Act, and federal racketeering  
statutes -- also accused Shell of being complicit in crimes against  
humanity, torture, inhumane treatment, arbitrary arrest, wrongful  
death, assault and battery, and infliction of emotional distress.

	It is understandable why the plaintiffs and their lawyers -- led by  
the non-profit organizations Center for Constitutional Rights and  
EarthRights International -- would feel a need to settle a case that  
had dragged on for 13 years and provide some financial assistance to  
the Ogoni community.

	Yet it is frustrating to see Shell trying to turn an outrage into an  
opportunity to burnish its image, even as other Ogoni claims are still  
unresolved. The frustration is compounded by the fact that Shell  
continues to engage in dubious behavior in other parts of its global  
operations.

	For example, the company has a problematic relationship with another  
undemocratic government as part of its deep involvement in a massive  
off-shore oil and gas project in the Russian Far East.

	That project, known as Sakhalin 2, has been the subject of a great  
deal of controversy because it threatens the survival of one of the  
world's most endangered species of whales, Western Pacific Grays.

	Non-profit organizations such as Pacific Environment, collaborating  
with Russian activists who formed Sakhalin Environment Watch, have  
pressured Shell and its partners to adopt stronger environmental  
protections or abandon the project.

	Shell's largest partner is Gazprom, the publicly traded gas monopoly  
controlled by the Russian government, which has used the company to  
advance Russian foreign policy goals vis-à-vis Eastern Europe by  
cutting off gas supplies at various times.

	There were reports last year that Shell had sought to influence the  
outcome of a purportedly independent environmental audit of Sakhalin  
2. More recently, Shell has acknowledged that it is interested in  
developing a new Sakhalin 3 project in collaboration with Gazprom.

	Previously, Shell gained notoriety for overstating its proven  
petroleum reserves by 20 percent. The company ended up paying about  
$150 million to U.S. and British authorities to settle accounting and  
fraud charges.

	It did not try to depict that payment as a humanitarian gesture, but  
it is possible that one day Shell may have to put a positive spin on  
millions paid to settle claims stemming from the harms caused in  
Sakhalin.