LONDON – Britain’s Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a group of Nigerian farmers and fishermen can sue Royal Dutch Shell PLC in English courts over pollution in a region where the Anglo-Dutch energy giant has a subsidiary.
Five justices on the U.K.'s top court said Shell has a “duty of care” to the claimants over the actions of its Nigerian subsidiary.
Shell had argued that it was not responsible. Members of Nigeria’s Ogale and Bille communities took Shell to court in Britain in 2016, alleging that decades of oil spills have fouled the water, contaminated the soil and destroyed the lives of thousands of people in the Niger River Delta, where a Shell subsidiary has operated for decades.