WED, MAY. 10 2023-theGBJournal| A panel of five UK Supreme Court justices Wednesday ruled in favour of two Shell subsidiaries in Nigeria on a case brought by a group of 27, 800 people and 457 communities on a December 20, 2011 oil spill in the Niger Delta region.
The court ruled that it was too late to bring the case which involved the spill of an estimated 40, 000 barrels of crude oil leaked from a tanker at Shell’s Bonga oilfield, about 120 kilometers of the coast of the Niger Delta.
The Supreme Court upheld the ruling by two lower courts that found the plaintiffs had brought their case after the six-year legal expiry date.
Shell had also argued that the Bonga spill was dispersed offshore and did not impact the shoreline. They plantiffs claimed the leftover oil slick polluted their lands and waterways, damaged farming, drinking water, mangrove forests and religious shrines.
Reuters news agency reports, the court did not look at the evidence supporting either side’s assertion or make a ruling on the issue. It only decided the legal point of nuisance.
”The Supreme Court rejects the claimants submission. There was no continuing nuisance in this case,” Justice Andrew Burrows said while delivering the ruling.
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