New Telegraph

1970 oil spill: S’Court stops Shell’s application to reverse N17bn compensation to victims

The Supreme Court yesterday dismissed an application by Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited seeking to set aside a N17 billion judgment given against Shell on January 11, 2019 over an oil spill recorded in 1970 in a community in Rivers State. In a unanimous judgement, a five-man panel of the Supreme Court held that the application by Shell lacks merit.

Justice Centus Nweze wrote the lead ruling in the case, marked: SC/731/2017, which was read by Justice Samuel Osuji, in which the court agreed with the respondents, to the effect that Shell’s application, was an invitation to the court to overrule itself.

Justice Nweze held that after a thorough examination of the briefs filed and issues raised by parties, he elected to uphold the preliminary objection raised by the respondents (victims of the oil spill, led by Chief Isaac Osaro Agbara), dismissed the application and ordered parties to bear their respective costs. The Supreme Court had in a ruling on January 11, 2019 dismissed the appeal by Shell against an earlier decision of the Court of Appeal on a June 14, 2010 judg- ment of the Federal High Court, which awarded damages against the oil company in an oil spill at Ejama-Ebubu in Tai Eleme Local Government Area of Rivers State.

Arguing the preliminary objection on September 22, 2020, respondents’ counsel, Lucius Nwosu (SAN), queried the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court to entertain Shell’s application, which he said was intended to make the apex court sit on an appeal over its decision Nwosu contended that Shell’s application was an abuse of court process because there was no longer a pending appeal on which it wanted the court to act. He noted that on learning about Shell’s fresh application, his clients wrote the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) to enquire about the status of the oil company’s appeal.

Nwosu said in a reply dated February 14, 2020, the CJN’s response showed that Shell’s appeal “is a spent appeal”. Nwosu queried: “If the CJN has said the appeal is spent, how can the same appellant come and revive the spent appeal?” The lawyer, who said his clients had taken steps to execute the judgment, added that the same Shell, which was reluctant to compensate victims of its oil spills in Nigeria, had paid about $206 million damages in similar circumstance in Mexico.

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