18th Dec 2015 14:56
AMSTERDAM (Alliance News) - Nigerian farmers have a right to bring Royal Dutch Shell to court for pollution, an appeals court announced Friday, paving the way for further legal action against the oil multinational for environmental damage in Nigeria.
Whether Shell will need to pay damages to farmers affected by oil spills will be decided in further court proceedings next year.
Four Nigerian farmers sued the Anglo-Dutch company in 2008 after oil leached onto their land. Shell had appealed the decision of a Hague-based court to allow a lawsuit in 2013.
Shell claims its subsidiary in Nigeria is responsible for the oil pipelines and that the case should therefore not be heard by a Dutch court.
The appeals court rejected that suggestion, and ordered Shell to release documents about the cause of damage to pipelines and any prior knowledge about the situation by company leaders.
According to Amnesty International, Shell made "blatantly false" claims that it cleaned up areas of the Niger Delta polluted by oil spills, leaving thousands of people "exposed to contaminated land, water and air."
The Niger Delta, an ecologically rich but densely populated area on Nigeria's coast, is the largest oil-producing region in Africa.
Copyright dpa
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