Our objectives are simple. We want Royal Dutch Shell executives to act at all times in accordance with Shell General Business Principles which include the claimed core principles of honesty, integrity, openness and respect for people in all of Shell’s dealings.
This is surely not an unreasonable ambition given that the principles were devised by Shell, are promoted by Shell and are supposedly current and binding on all Shell operations everywhere. In other words, we are only asking Shell executives to do what they already claim to be doing.
The plain fact is that if Shell executives had abided with the SGBP, scandals such as the reserves fraud and the preventable Brent Bravo deaths which flowed from the Shell “Touch F*** All” safety culture on North Sea Platforms, could not have occurred.
We do not believe that it is morally acceptable that Shell executives are indemnified so that even if they cheat, deceive and cover-up serious misdeeds, treating shareholders and the public as gullible fools, they are still able to walk away as winners. In the case of Sir Philip Watts, with a severance package/pension pot reportedly worth $18.5 million USD. We think that this is disgraceful situation at odds with all ethical norms including the SGBP and will continue to say so on this website.
The SGBP is being been used as a PR tool to promote undeserved confidence in the scruples and honesty of Shell senior management. For example, the SGBP featured in the Form 20F Declarations filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission thereby generating confidence in the proven reserves volumes which had been inflated i.e. were false.
While Shell execs continue to make pledges of ethical trading which they flout, we will continue our humble efforts to expose their hypocrisy and we welcome the support of others who like us are not prepared to put up with such deception.
The gap between Shell rhetoric and reality is evidence from Shell’s appalling track record including a leadership role in price fixing cartels, numerous Clean Air Act violations, repeated environmental infringements, multimillion dollar fines for groundwater contamination, more fines for unauthorised venting and flaring of gas etc.
All set out in the Wikipedia article: Controversies surrounding Royal Dutch Shell
1 Sanctions busting in Rhodesia
2 Corruption in Italy
3 Pollution at Rocky Mountain Arsenal, Denver, Colorado
4 Explosion at Shell Louisiana refinery
5 Emission violations at Shell Wood River Refinery in Illinois
6 US Clean Air Act violations
7 Shell to Sea
8 $153.6 million damages for U.S. patent infringement
9 Release of chemical pollutants at Shell Texas Deer Park complex
10 Emission violations at Shell Martinez refinery in California
11 Jiffy Lube International
12 Environmental infringements by Shell in Louisiana
13 Shell Pipeline rupture in Washington
14 Groundwater contamination by Shell in USA
15 Unauthorised venting and flaring of gas by Shell in USA
16 Dutch Advertising Authority rules Shell advert misleading
17 UK Advertising Authority rules Shell advert misleading
18 The Vietnam War
19 Nigeria
20 Darfur region of Sudan
21 Exchange Control speculation in Japan
22 Environmental law infringements in Brazil
23 Brent Spar
24 Tainted Shell gasoline in North America
25 Retirement fund deficiencies in Malaysia
26 Refinery contamination in Texas
27 Oil Refinery in Durban
28 Oil and gas reserves recategorisation
29 Sakhalin
30 The Shell Foundation
31 Bonus schemes
32 Domain name oversight
33 Tell Shell Forum
34 Participation in price fixing cartels
35 Iran
36 Nicaragua
37 Alaska
38 Safety
39 Iraq
40 Change of early retirement scheme in Ethiopia
For the complete article with working links go to…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_surrounding_Royal_Dutch_Shell
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