In order to make up for the harm caused by pipeline breaches, Shell announced on Friday that it will give 15 million euros to Nigerian farmers.
After 13 years of legal disputes, a Dutch appeals court decided last year that Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary must make amends for a number of leaks and that the parent corporation must put new pipeline equipment in place to stop further catastrophic spills.
On Friday, Shell announced that it had negotiated an agreement with the Dutch environmental organization Milieudefensie that had benefited the impacted areas.
“Under the settlement, The Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Ltd (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,” it said in a statement.
The agreement also attests to the completion of remedial work and the installation of a leak detection system on 20 pipeline segments in accordance with the Dutch court’s order.
Despite 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”.
To recover costs for cleaning up leaks from its pipelines in the Niger Delta, four farmers and fishermen from Nigeria sued Shell in the Netherlands.
They received assistance from Milieudefensie, the Friends of the Earth Dutch chapter.
Shell has consistently linked sabotage to pollution and claimed to have cleaned up the damaged areas.
The initial farmers lost their lives as a result of the protracted court dispute, but their surviving families and the afflicted areas persisted.
“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,” said Eric Dooh, one of the current plaintiffs.
According to Donald Pols, director of Milieudefensie, the settlement would finally let the claimants and their communities move on with their lives.
But he added that it also has broader implications.
“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,” he said.
“Now they can be called to account.”
