Nigerian Families Settle With Shell

The Nigerian families who sued Shell have settled for $15.5 million. The trial was supposed to begin tomorrow. A previous post on the lawsuit, which was about the execution of protesters in the 1990s, and the Alien Tort Statute under which the case was brought, is here.

While a jury has never found a multinational company to be liable for human rights abuses by a U.S. jury, a few others have settled. In December, a federal jury acquitted Chevron in a lawsuit brought by Nigerians for a violent clash on an oil platform off the country's coast.

From the plaintiffs' attorneys' press release:

Today, the parties in Wiwa v. Shell agreed to settle human rights claims charging the Royal Dutch/Shell company, its Nigerian subsidiary, Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC or Shell Nigeria), and the former head of its Nigerian operation, Brian Anderson, with complicity in the torture, killing, and other abuses of Ogoni leader Ken Saro-Wiwa and other non-violent Nigerian activists in the mid-1990s in the Ogoni region of the Niger Delta.

The settlement, whose terms are public, provides a total of $15.5 million. These funds will compensate the 10 plaintiffs, who include family members of the deceased victims; establish a Trust intended to benefit the Ogoni people; and cover a portion of plaintiffs’ legal fees and costs. The settlement is only on behalf of the individual plaintiffs for their individual claims. It does not resolve outstanding issues between Shell and the Ogoni people, and the plaintiffs did not negotiate on behalf of the Ogoni people.

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Marco Simons, [EarthRights International] Legal Director, stated, “The courts repeatedly rejected Shell’s efforts to dismiss this case, setting important legal precedents for the continued prosecution of corporations in breach of international law. This reinforces the plaintiffs’ demands that corporations such as Shell safeguard human rights and the environment.”