About 50,000 Nigerians can sue Shell in England over oil spills which have caused “widespread environmental damage,” the Supreme Court ruled yesterday.
Two Nigerian communities say they have suffered systematic and ongoing oil pollution for years because of Shell’s operations in the African country, including the pollution of their drinking water.
The Ogale and Bille communities near the Niger Delta took legal action against Shell and its Nigerian subsidiary, the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC), in 2015.
They argued that the spills were caused by SPDC’s negligence, with Shell exercising “a high degree of control, direction and oversight in respect of SPDC’s pollution and environmental compliance.”
Both the High Court and the Court of Appeal ruled that there was no arguable case that Shell owed the claimants a duty of care, but the Supreme Court said “there is a real issue to be tried.”
Mark Dearn, director of the Corporate Responsibility Coalition UK which intervened in the case, said: “This landmark ruling is a vital step towards justice for some 50,000 claimants from the Ogale and Bille communities.”
