“High Court trial finds Shell plc and former Nigerian subsidiary can be held legally responsible for legacy oil pollution in Nigeria”, 20 June 2025

Years of chronic oil spills have left the Bille and Ogale communities, which have a combined population of 50,000, without clean water, unable to farm and fish and with serious ongoing risk to public health...

After a four-week High Court preliminary issues trial from 13 February to Friday 7 March 2025, Mrs Justice May ruled on Friday 20 June 2025 that Shell’s attempts to restrict the scope of the upcoming full trial, to be held in 2027, had failed…

Claims for legacy pollution...

• The judge found that a failure to clean up could be an ongoing breach of Shell’s legal obligation to clean up and could create a fresh right to make a legal claim for every day that the pollution remained…

Illegal bunkering and refining...

• Shell argued that it could never be liable for pollution arising from bunkering or illegal refining. The judge rejected Shell’s arguments and found that Shell could be liable for damage from bunkering or illegal refining if it failed to protect its infrastructure,…

Liability of Shell plc

• Shell argued at the preliminary issues trial that the Nigerian legal framework prevented claims against its parent company, Shell plc, for oil spills from pipelines. The judge rejected this argument and concluded that Shell plc can still be liable for these spills…

Next steps

The trial is a significant moment in the legal claim by the Bille and Ogale communities, who have been fighting UK-based Shell plc and oil company Renaissance, formerly Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Ltd, for a clean-up and compensation since 2015…