Shell Hands Over $15.5million to Settle Lawsuit

A law suit, dating back to 1996, and which according to Jennie Green (a lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights who initiated the lawsuit) "was one of the first cases to charge a multinational corporation with human rights violations" has been settled at the cost of $15.5 million by the oil company Shell.

In the lawsuit, Shell was alleged to have conspired with Nigeria's military government to silence human rights and environmental activists in Nigeria's oil rich Ogoni region (in other words to capture and hang the 'Ogoni nine' — John Kpuinen, Saturday Doobee, Felix Nuate, Daniel Gbokoo, Dr. Barinem Kiobel, and the world famous writer Ken Saro-Wiwa, were amongst those executed on 10 November 1995).

The lawsuit said that Shell officials (from its subsidiary Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited) had helped furnish the Nigerian police with weapons, the Nigerian army with vehicles and patrol boats, and that they helped plan raids against Ogoni villages.

It apparently took three weeks of intensive negotiations to come up with the settlement deal. $5million of the settlement will be used to set up the Kiisi trust (Kiisi is an Ogoni word which means progress) which will support educational initiatives in the Niger Delta.

A statement by Malcolm Brinded, Shell's executive director of exploration and production, explained that: "This gesture ... acknowledges that, even though Shell had no part in the violence that took place, the plaintiffs and others have suffered."

An alternative view of the settlement was given by Stephen Kretzmann, director of Oil Change International — "[They] knew the case was overwhelming against them, so they bought their way out of a trial".

More on the settlement from International News Media:
At the Guardian: Shell pays out $15.5m over Saro-Wiwa killing
At the Washington Post: Shell settles human rights suit for $15.5M