The UK Supreme Court has ruled that Nigerian claimants missed a six-year deadline to sue Shell over a 2011 offshore oil spill.
– Key points to note
On Wednesday, a panel of five justices unanimously upheld two previous rulings by lower courts, which found that the claimants had brought the case against the oil giant after the deadline for taking action had passed.
The claimants’ lawyers had argued that regardless of time, the ongoing damage directly caused by oil and gas activity in the region represented a “continuing nuisance”.
The Supreme Court rejected this argument, saying that there was no continuing nuisance in this case.
“The Supreme Court rejects the claimants’ submission. There was no continuing nuisance in this case,” said Justice Andrew Burrows who delivered the court’s decision, according to Reuters.
Why this matters
The Niger Delta is an area plagued by environmental pollution following decades of oil production by Shell, ExxonMobil, Eni, Total and more. In 2015, Shell agreed to pay out $70m in compensation to communities affected by an oil spill in Bodo in 2008.
In 2021, a UK court asked Shell to pay over $111m in damages to communities in southern Nigeria over oil spills stemming back to the 1970s.
– Learn more
The latest case related to a December 20, 2011 crude oil leak involving 40,000 barrels which occurred during the loading of a tanker at Shell’s giant Bonga oil field, 120 km off the coast of the Niger Delta.
The spill was considered the worst in the area for over a decade. Amnesty International said the spill had a devastating long-term impact on the coastal area, polluting lands and waterways, damaging farming and fishing work, and contaminating drinking water and mangrove forests.
Shell disputed the claim, saying the spill did not impact the shoreline.
A group of 27,800 individuals and 457 coastal and fishing communities have tried to sue Shell for the leak. Only two Nigerians were appellants in the Supreme Court case, but the ruling will also apply to the thousands of other claimants.
Shell said the ruling brought to an end all legal claims in English courts related to the spill.
“While the 2011 Bonga spill was highly regrettable, it was swiftly contained and cleaned up offshore,” a Shell spokesperson said.
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