The UK Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that it was too late for Nigerian claimants to file a lawsuit against two Shell l companies over an offshore oil leak from 2011, which they allege had a terrible long-term effect on the coastal region where they reside.
The lawsuit is related to the estimated 40,000 barrels of crude oil that leaked on December 20, 2011, as an oil ship was being loaded at Shell’s Bonga oil field, 120 kilometers off the southern Niger Delta coast of Nigeria.
Living in the delta, a group of 27,800 people and 457 villages have been attempting to file a lawsuit against Shell on the grounds that the ensuing oil slick damaged their lands and waterways, harming farming, fishing, drinking water, mangrove trees, and religious sites.
457 villages and a group of 27,800 people are suing Shell on the grounds that the ensuing oil slick damaged local lands and waterways, harming mangrove trees, holy sites, fishing, farming, and drinking water.
However, the Supreme Court affirmed decisions made by two lower courts that concluded the plaintiffs filed their lawsuit after a six-year legal period had passed.
Five Supreme Court justices unanimously rejected the attorneys’ claim that the pollution’s continued effects constituted a specific kind of civil tort known as a “continuing nuisance” in their decision. This would have shown that the six-year window was not in effect.
“The Supreme Court rejects the claimants’ submission. There was no continuing nuisance in this case,” said justice Andrew Burrows, delivering the ruling on behalf of the panel.
The Bonga leak was distributed offshore and had little impact on the beach, according to Shell, which refuted the claimants’ assertions. Because it was simply trying to resolve the legal question of nuisance, the court did not consider the facts in support of either side’s claims or reach a decision on the matter.
The Supreme Court’s decision would be binding on the hundreds of other parties who participated in the case in the lower courts, even though there were only two Nigerian individuals who filed an appeal in the case.
