A High Court judge in London has ruled that thousands of residents of Bille, an oil-producing community in Rivers State, can pursue claims against Shell Plc and its former Nigerian subsidiary over widespread oil pollution allegedly caused by spills between 2011 and 2013.Courts & Judiciary
Mrs Justice Lambert, sitting in the King’s Bench Division of the High Court of Justice in London, also ruled that the claimants can pursue allegations that Shell deliberately obstructed their long-running legal action, including claims that the company relied on false or misleading assertions, deleted disclosure material and destroyed relevant evidence.The ruling, delivered on Thursday, concerns two sets of proceedings brought by Bille residents and the community under case numbers KB-2023-000252 and KB-2022-005017.
The judge rejected Shell’s attempt to prevent the claimants from advancing what the company described as an overly broad case in which the individual spills responsible for particular damage cannot always be identified.She ruled that the claimants could argue that pollution damage in Bille was caused by oil escaping from Shell’s infrastructure even where a specific spill cannot be pinpointed, provided they can establish their case through evidence and reasonable inferences arising from the circumstances.
The decision also allows the claimants to pursue an application for aggravated damages based on allegations concerning Shell’s conduct during the litigation.Legal
The liability trial is scheduled to begin on May 4, 2027, following more than a decade of legal proceedings.
The underlying claims concern oil spills from pipelines, wellheads and other infrastructure operated by Shell’s former Nigerian subsidiary, Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Ltd.
The company has since been renamed Renaissance Africa Energy Company Limited following Shell’s divestment of its onshore Nigerian assets.
The claims relate to alleged pollution of waterways, land and mangrove forests around Bille and Ogale in the Niger Delta between 2011 and 2013.
Four sets of proceedings were filed between June 2015 and January 2017, involving individual claimants as well as the Bille and Ogale communities.
The litigation was initially dominated by a jurisdictional dispute over whether the claims could be heard by English courts. That issue was resolved in 2021 when the UK Supreme Court ruled in Okpabi and others v Royal Dutch Shell Plc and another that the claims could proceed in England.
The litigation later became focused on how the claimants were required to establish causation, particularly whether they had to identify the specific oil spill responsible for each instance of damage.
The case also raised the issue of so-called “global claims”, in which a claimant seeks to establish liability for a totality of damage without identifying the precise cause of every individual loss.
In 2022, O’Farrell J held that such claims were permissible but involved an “inherent degree of risk” because claimants would have to establish the matters complained of in their entirety.
The Court of Appeal subsequently ruled in December 2024 that it would be wrong to impose a case-management regime on the Bille claims on the assumption that they were global claims. However, it stressed that the claimants would have to plead their case with sufficient particularity before trial so that Shell could understand the allegations and have a fair opportunity to respond.Courts & Judiciary
Following that ruling, the Bille claimants amended their case.
By the July 2026 hearing, they had filed a document of more than 400 pages containing 426 paragraphs. The amended pleading sets out alleged breaches under the Oil Pipelines Act 1990, the Petroleum Act 1969 and common-law claims including negligence, nuisance and the rule in Rylands v Fletcher.
The claimants also produced an updated Annex A identifying 106 individual oil spills between 2011 and 2013.
According to the case before the court, 60 of those incidents were recorded by Shell and assigned incident numbers, while the claimants said they had identified another 46 incidents through their own investigations that Shell had not recorded or reported.
The claimants have linked each of the 106 spills to specific alleged systemic failures by Shell.
Their case is divided into what they describe as “primary” and “secondary” cases.
The secondary case concerns the 106 identified spills, and Shell did not challenge the claimants’ ability to rely on inference to establish causation in relation to those incidents.
The more contentious issue was the primary case.
Under that case, the Bille claimants argue that where pollution damage cannot be linked to one of the 106 identified spills, the court can still infer that the damage resulted from oil escaping from Shell’s infrastructure.
The claimants allege that such pollution could have resulted from oil escaping directly from Shell’s infrastructure, through illegal third-party connections or through illegal refineries.
They argue that the wider pollution resulted from systemic failures, including inadequate infrastructure integrity, deficient systems for detecting and repairing leaks and inadequate security against oil theft and illegal bunkering.
Shell says claim is “a case without a target”
Shell opposed the primary case, arguing that it represented a significant departure from the claimants’ previous position
Its counsel, James Willan KC, described the case as “a case without a target”, arguing that Shell would be unable to investigate and challenge allegations on a spill-by-spill basis if the claimants could not identify which spill caused particular damage.
Willan relied on statements previously made by the claimants’ lawyers indicating that specific spills would be identified.
At a July 2023 hearing, the claimants’ then-lead counsel, Mr Hermer KC, had told the court: “Can I make our position as plain as I can? In order to prove their case, a claimant will need to demonstrate that particular spills, for which Shell is legally responsible, caused the damage complained of.”
Shell argued that the new primary case departed from that position and came too late, particularly with the trial date already fixed.
It also raised concerns over limitation periods and differences between the legal regimes applying to pipeline spills and pollution from other infrastructure.
The company argued that allowing the broader case would make it difficult to determine which spills were covered by the claims and which might have been outside the applicable limitation period.
Judge rejects Shell’s objections
Mrs Justice Lambert rejected Shell’s objections.
She found that the claimants’ primary case was not a material departure from the case they had previously advanced.
The judge pointed to the claimants’ earlier submissions that they could establish systemic failures and ask the court to draw inferences about the source of pollution.
She said a statement made by Hermer in July 2023 “captures exactly the case that the Claimants have recently set out” in their latest pleading.
She also referred to the Court of Appeal’s recognition that the claimants had consistently relied on oil spills from Shell’s pipelines and infrastructure during the relevant period, even where they could not identify a particular spill.
The judge concluded that the claimants had complied with the court’s direction to plead their causation case with sufficient particularity.
Although Shell might disagree with the case, she said the company knew what case it had to meet.
Mrs Justice Lambert also rejected the argument that the case was an impermissible global claim.
She said a defining feature of a global claim was that it was an “all or nothing” claim, whereas the Bille claimants’ case could succeed on some grounds even if other grounds failed.
“These are not ‘all or nothing’ claims,” she wrote.
The judge also rejected Shell’s argument that the claim was unfair because the company could not identify the target of each allegation.
She said the claimants intended to prove specific damage in specific sample areas, allowing Shell to identify the location of its infrastructure and direct its evidence accordingly.
The 106 identified spills would also serve as a sample or example cohort covering different infrastructure, causes and periods.
Whether the claimants could ultimately prove their wider case, she said, was a matter for the trial.
She rejected the suggestion that the claim was “untriable”, saying whether the claimants could discharge their evidential burden “is a question for trial and not a reason to prevent the case being litigated.”
Claimants accuse Shell of sabotaging cas
The second major issue addressed in the judgment concerned the claimants’ application for aggravated damages.
The claimants seek a proposed five per cent uplift on any compensation they may eventually receive, based on allegations concerning Shell’s conduct during the litigation.
They allege that Shell’s original jurisdiction challenge was “calculated to impede the Claimants’ ability to pursue the claims.”
They also allege that Shell knowingly relied on false or misleading factual assertions with the intention of preventing the claims from continuing.
A third allegation concerns what the claimants describe as “widespread deletion of data of key disclosure custodians and the destruction of relevant documentation and evidence.”
Shell did not argue that the claimants were barred in principle from bringing an aggravated damages claim.
Instead, it argued that the issue should be dealt with later, during the quantum phase of the trial, after the court had determined whether Shell was liable.
Willan described the claim as relatively modest and warned that dealing with it during the liability trial could result in a resource-intensive “mini-trial” and distract both sides from preparations for the May 2027 hearing.
He also argued that the allegation that Shell had knowingly misled the court during the jurisdiction challenge could raise issues concerning legal professional privilege and require separate consideration.
The claimants argued that delaying the issue could create problems with assessing witnesses.
Anneliese Day KC argued that findings about the credibility of Shell witnesses during the liability trial could potentially be affected by evidence that only emerged later during disclosure for the aggravated damages claim.
Judge orders aggravated damages issue to be heard now
Mrs Justice Lambert agreed that the issue should be addressed alongside the liability trial rather than postponed.
She found that deferring it could delay the quantum stage of the proceedings by between six and eight months, which she described as “strongly undesirable” given the age of the litigation and previous judicial calls for the case to proceed without further delay.
She also accepted concerns about witness credibility and the possibility that witnesses might have to be recalled if relevant evidence emerged only after the liability trial.
The judge acknowledged that there was “no ideal solution” and that addressing the aggravated damages allegations immediately would require additional resources from both sides.
However, she concluded that the overriding objective of dealing with the litigation fairly and efficiently favoured hearing the issue now.
She also noted the “relatively small added value of the claim for aggravated damages”, saying a proportionate approach should govern its case management and eventual trial.
Trial scheduled for May 2027
The Bille liability trial is scheduled to begin on May 4, 2027.
The 106 identified spills will form an important part of the evidence, serving as lead cases and a sample through which the court will assess the claimants’ wider allegations.
The judge said the parties had agreed that she would first make findings concerning the lead cases, sample areas and 106 identified spills before hearing arguments about what wider inferences could properly be drawn in relation to unidentified spills.
That means the outcome of the 106 identified cases could have significant implications for the wider claim.
Mrs Justice Lambert noted that if the claimants failed to establish Shell’s liability for most of the identified spills, their broader case would have “a very unpromising basis” for success.