Posts from ‘October, 2009’

How online protesters are using ‘gripe site’ as the focus for their complaints about big business

Russell Hotten
The Guardian, Monday 26 October 2009

At 92 years old, Alfred Donovan is an unlikely online campaigner. But he and his son John, 62, have been a painful thorn in the side of Royal Dutch Shell for more than a decade. The pair run one of the oldest and most effective “gripe sites”, and the oil giant’s army of well-paid lawyers do not know how to neutralise them.

The number of so-called “gripe sites”, which exist to criticise, mock, and generally annoy companies, people, and institutions, has exploded in recent years, and the trend is set to continue.

Take this month’s campaign against the super-injunction obtained by the lawyers Carter Ruck on behalf of Trafigura. Thousands of Twitter users, empowered and astonished at the campaign’s success, are expected to look afresh at how the internet can be used to fight against big business.

“The anti-Trafigura campaign really brought home – even to someone like me – the power of the internet and new media,” says John Donovan, a former marketing entrepreneur. “Once, you could never hope to take on companies that had loads of money and lawyers. Now there is an alternative to legal action. You can make a big impact with very little cost.”

Last week the Donovans were leafleting outside Shell’s London HQ to advertise their website, www.royaldutchshellplc.com. But they hardly need the publicity – the site had more than 2m hits last month – and leafleting was just another way of goading a company they have been at war with since the early 1990s.

The site is so successful that Kremlin officials and US investigators have used it. Journalists, knowing that the site regularly receives juicy leaks from Shell employees, search it for stories. Since setting up his first anti-Shell site in 1995, Donovan estimates he has published about 24,000 articles about the company.

One early and successful gripe site was www.mcspotlight.org, founded after the celebrated McLibel trial involving McDonalds in 1997. Another site, www.ihatedell.net, carved a niche as a forum for critics of the Dell computer company. Dell’s answer was to engage with its critics rather than use legal muscle to close them down. In contrast the investment bank Goldman Sachs failed in a legal bid against www.goldmansachs666.com.

Katy Howell, the director of Immediate Future, which specialises in social media, believes Dell made a textbook response to its gripe site. “Dell spoke to its critics and responded to their concerns. They turned a negative into a positive,” she says.

The Donovans’ campaign was prompted by a grievance over claims that Shell stole intellectual property from their marketing company. The legal bills from four court cases in the 1990s almost crippled the two men. Shell fully investigated the Donovans’ claims, and in 1999 agreed a “peace deal” under which the pair got an undisclosed sum. However, the payment was far less than the £1m they wanted. The Donovans claim Shell then breached the agreement by talking publicly about the case. Shell denies breaching any part of the agreement with the Donovans.

Since then, Shell is thought to have contacted the Donovans at least once, using a middle man, to resolve the dispute. John Donovan will not comment on this but shows no sign of agreeing to mediation.

Four years ago Shell was embroiled in a bitter dispute with Russia’s environmental regulator over drilling for gas at Sakhalin Island. It was eventually forced to relinquish its majority stake in the project, costing Shell billions in lost revenue. Later, the regulator, Oleg Mitvol, publicly acknowledged the Donovans’ help in getting information about alleged claims of environmental abuses by Shell. The company has denied breaking any environmental regulations.

Earlier this year the site disclosed plans for thousands of Shell job losses. And now, Donovan says, he is helping US investigators looking into the award of oilfield drilling licenses, providing them with information leaked to his website.

The site has broadened its coverage to include other stories about the oil and gas industry. “I knew when I started the site that if it was static – just with the same story – people would visit us once and never again,” says Donovan. “So I brought in a news element, mixing negative but also positive stories about Shell.”

But “kicking” Shell is still the site’s raison d’etre, and Donovan has no intention of easing up. “My father is 92. So if I live that long there’s still plenty of years to pursue my little hobby.”

Shell says of the Donovans: “We disagree fundamentally with much of the information and basis on which they make their allegations.”

The Donovans live in Essex but the website is hosted in Dallas, Texas, and is incorporated in America as a non-profit operation. US laws offer better protection against closure attempts. Shell tried to regain the website name, calling the Donovans cybersquatters, but in 2005 the World Intellectual Property Organisation dismissed the application.

Would Donovan stop if Shell waved a large cheque? “It’s gone beyond money,” he says, but he has no doubt that Shell’s lawyers are watching closely, waiting for a slip-up that would give the company a chance to go on the attack.

Guardian Article

In the Niger Delta, a region of Nigeria the size of England where much of the country’s oil reserves lie, Maass is paddled through a network of rivers to impoverished towns that lie alongside big Royal Dutch Shell installations. The flaring of natural gas lights the sky and spreads noxious fumes. The towns share virtually none of the wealth springing from the ground – though that may be due to corrupt officials.

Royal Dutch Shell resumed operations at its Soku gas plant last week, nearly a year after it was forced to shut down because of attacks on its pipelines.

LEAFLET BEING DISTRIBUTED AT SHELL CENTRE, LONDON, WEEK COMMENCING 26 OCTOBER 2009

Domain name battle for Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com (guess who lost)

By John Donovan of royaldutchshellplc.com: Oct 2009

Only Shell could end up in the humiliating position of its arch critics owning the dotcom domain name for the unified parent company Royal Dutch Shell Plc.

Richard Wiseman, currently RDS Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer, has publicly boasted that he was the conductor of the legal orchestra responsible for creating the unified company from the ashes of the Shell Transport/Royal Dutch structure destroyed by the reserves fraud.

Unfortunately, he forgot to ensure that the top-level domain name for the new company was secured before the name of Royal Dutch Shell Plc was publicly revealed. Imagine the shock and horror when Shell executive directors discovered the identity of the party who had beaten them to the precise dotcom domain name for the company: my father, Alfred Donovan (now 92 yrs old).

Shell International Petroleum Company Ltd quickly issued proceedings against him in 2005 believing Shell was automatically entitled to the dotcom domain name for its own company. How could Shell possibility lose? Shell also attempted to seize two other domain names – royaldutchshellgroup .com and tellshell.org.

From Shell’s submission:

“The disputed names www.royaldutchshellplc.com and www.royaldutchshellgroup.com registered by the Respondent are, to all intents and purposes, identical to the company name “Royal Dutch Shell plc” and the collective name “Royal Dutch/Shell Group”.  ”The Complainant contends that the disputed names are names which rightfully belong to the Group.”

Shell claimed in the proceedings that their “Tell Shell Forum” was “one of the few genuine corporate forums”.  It was however later “suspended” (permanently) after Wiseman admitted Shell had engaged in censorship of critical postings on what had been falsely touted as an uncensored forum for open and lively debate. Some of the censorship was carried out secretly in the hope no one would notice. Another mistake. Another humiliation.

Shell also mentioned the Smart settlement, stating: “No payment was made by Shell in relation to the claim itself, although for reasons which are not relevant to this Complaint, a contribution was made to the legal expenses of John Donovan.” More Shell smoke and mirrors’. In fact, I received a secret payment and Shell paid ALL legal costs. The settlement terms were deemed so sensitive that Shell withheld them from the trial Judge who made closing comments under the mistaken impression of a stalemate result, when in fact Shell had settled the claim on its second attempt to do so during the trial.

The proceedings predictably caught the imagination of the international press as a classic David v Goliath battle with an oil giant on one side and a then 88 year old 2nd World War veteran on the other.

Selection of extracts…

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL 2 June 2005:

“Shell Wages Legal Fight Over Web Domain Name”: Just after Shell unveiled the name of the new entity last October, Mr. Donovan — who has had frequent legal battles with Shell — snapped up the rights to the Web site.”

“The two Donovans are well-known to Shell. They have waged a long-running anti-Shell campaign dating to the 1990s revolving around disputes over the rights to Shell gasoline-station promotions.”

“In their complaint with the World Intellectual Property Organization, Shell attorneys argued that although there is no litigation outstanding between the two sides, the company believes the elder Mr. Donovan acquired the Web site “as a means of increasing his capability to disparage Shell at some time in the future.”

(Shell was right on that score)

THE NEW YORK TIMES 25 June 2005:

“Another dampener on Shell’s biggest corporate overhaul since the two holding firms tied up in 1907, is a spat over the rights to the web domain “royaldutchshellplc.com.” Disgruntled shareholder Alfred Donovan beat Shell to register the domain name. Shell has sued Donovan for the rights to the domain but while the matter plays out, Donovan uses the site to lambaste Shell management.”

THE OUTCOME

THE TIMES 16 August 2005:

“AN ATTEMPT by Royal Dutch Shell to claim the website royaldutchshellplc.com from an 88-year-old veteran who uses it to publish material that criticises the oil giant has failed. The Geneva-based WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Centre has ruled in favour of Alfred Donovan, who has said that he will not relinquish the site until the company gets rid of all the management he deems responsible for its various recent woes, notably the reserves scandal.”

Shell lost the action on all three of the domain names, partly because the relevant websites are all entirely non-commercial. So Shell is stuck with the public humiliation of a website using the precise dotcom domain name of the world’s largest company – Royal Dutch Shell Plc – to ridicule, criticise and expose the oil giant.

And worse still for Shell, we regularly receive and process email meant for the company, including job applications, business proposals and other confidential communications. This is the highly embarrassing and bizarre predicament in which the multinational oil giant Shell currently finds itself.

Earlier this week, another branch of the interior department gave Shell the go-ahead to begin exploratory drilling in the Beaufort Seat, which is home to large numbers of endangered bowhead whales, walruses and seals as well as polar bear.

President Umaru Yar’Adua met Shell’s Chief Executive Officer Peter Voser in Nigeria’s capital Abuja to discuss the situation in the oil-producing Niger Delta, which has seen a lull in violence in the last few months.

It is hoped that big corporate clients, such as BP and Shell, which often use private security in countries such as Nigeria, will also use only companies that are code-compliant.

The CBI yesterday issued a stark warning about the escalating level of executive pay, which it cited as a key factor in the “severe knock” business had suffered to its reputation in the recession.

The recommendation follows signs of increasing investor unrest over very high boardroom pay awards. Royal Dutch Shell last month unveiled a big boardroom shake-up designed to placate its biggest investors, after 59 per cent of shareholders in May voted against its remuneration report. The revolt was one of a number of protests against board decisions to pay directors bonuses, despite companies failing to meet performance targets.

Full FT Article

Anglo-Dutch giant Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSa.L), based on the average among some analysts, is expected to show comparable net profit of $2.5 billion, down 69 percent from a year ago.

LEAFLET BEING DISTRIBUTED AT SHELL CENTRE, LONDON, WEEK COMMENCING 26 OCTOBER 2009.

SEX, DRUGS & CORRUPTION SPONSORED BY SHELL

By John Donovan of royaldutchshellplc.com: October 2009

Shell senior management pretends that it stands resolutely behind the anti-corruption pledges in the Shell General Business Principles.

I have already revealed that the hypocrites at the top of Shell, including executive director Malcolm “TFA” Brinded and the rule bending Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer, Richard Wiseman, encourage and support corrupt practices. Wiseman’s behind the scenes support is directly at odds with an anti-corruption speech he delivered in June 2008 at the Asia Anti-Corruption Conference.

The stink of corruption associated with Shell is pervasive and impossible to contain. In the hard commercial world, Shell senior management is prepared to do whatever it takes to meet its objectives, whether it is turning a blind eye to corrupt practices in the UK, bribery and corruption in Russia (the Sakhalin2 project) or in Nigeria, where Shell has also paid militants carrying out attacks on Shell employees and property. It is unclear whether the murky payments, reported in the FT, were to stop or promote the attacks, which have driven up the price of oil.

We mentioned in a recent leaflet the criminal investigation currently in progress in Scotland involving Shell, Malcolm Brinded, the HSE and alleged corruption.

We now have the criminal investigation by the U.S. Justice Department into former U.S. Interior Secretary Gale Norton and the award of potentially highly lucrative oil shale leases to Shell Oil, which subsequently became her employer.

One moment Norton was the head of a U.S. government department negotiating multibillion-dollar agreements with Shell, the next (just months later) she was working for Shell Oil as General Counsel in the division dealing with oil shale. This was blatantly improper, undoubtedly against the public interest and probably illegal. It smells to high heaven.

In this connection, we are aware of speculation that we have supplied Shell internal documents and correspondence to the U.S. investigators. The speculation is understandable bearing in mind our international reputation as a purveyor of Shell confidential internal information. One example was our key role in the Sakhalin2 project resulting in Shell’s loss of its ownership stake and the forced resignation, in embarrassing circumstances, of the project director, General David Greer.

I have been writing about Gale Norton for over a year. Not just out of concern over her joining Shell in highly dubious circumstances, but also because of a corruption scandal involving her staff. This scandal had it all; bribes, drugs, sex and oil. Shell was a prime sponsor of the immoral and illegal activities, which also breached Shell’s claimed ethical code.

Further proof that Shell General Business Principles are a complete fraud.

The Minerals Management Service (MMS) of the U.S. Department of The Interior and the Office of Inspector General initiated an investigation in 2006 after receiving allegations from a confidential source that improprieties were occurring within the Royalty in Kind Program (RIK). The following extracts in italics, not necessarily in original order, are taken directly from the official report.

In e-mails we retrieved from computer hard drives and network servers, we found numerous indications that many of the events that RIK employees attended with industry officials were purely social. For instance, e-mail from Shell Pipeline Company representative to RIK employee Crystel Edler, regarding attending “tailgating festivities” at a Houston Texans game, stated, ”You’re invited have you and the girls meet at my place at 6am for bubble baths and final prep. Just kidding…”

The Shell Pipeline Company representative’s previous e-mail inviting people to the event was laden with sexual innuendo such as, “We’ve always provided the patrons with beer on demand, but the ever-depleting supplies have dwindled beer storage to dangerously low volumes on occasion…. Although it’s a given that the horsemen will indeed ‘bring the meat to the table.’

In 2004, Shell provided Leyshon with lodging and paid for her ski costs in Keystone, CO. She also admitted to having a “one-night stand” with a Shell employee. She stated that this employee did not prepare Shell’s RIK bids. Leyshon told investigators that she ”had a hit every once in a while in reference to her use of marijuana but noted that this never occurred at the MMS office.

When interviewed, Michael Faulise, Director of Marketing for Shell Exploration and Production Company (Shell E&P), stated that he had worked for Shell since 2000… When asked, Faulise stated that he was unable to recall Leyshon ever paying for any lodging or meals provided by Shell.

We interviewed a senior crude oil trader for Shell Oil Trading Company regarding his relationship with Stacy Leyshon pursuant to a DOJ proffer agreement. The senior trader said he had heard Leyshon and Edler referred to by other Shell employees as the “MMS Chicks” who often drank too much and conducted themselves in an unprofessional manner.

In addition, our investigation disclosed that in 2004, Greg Smith became concerned that an RIK employee might have released confidential pipeline transportation rates to Shell. Apparently, a company official from Poseidon Oil had called Smith to complain that Shell had learned of the confidential transportation rate that Poseidon had negotiated with RIK. We also discovered emails sent among RIK Staff where Edler admitted to talking to “Mike” (Faulise) about the Poseidon deal. On May 6, 2004, Smith sent an e-mail to several RIK marketers including Edler that stated, “I have heard the details of our agreement with Poseidon … including the actual rate we agreed to … was communicated to Shell. If true, this ran counter to our promise to Poseidon to keep this information confidential.”

Edler admitted that she had used cocaine “in the past,” most recently in 2005. However, she claimed that she never used cocaine during business hours and that she never used cocaine with any MMS employees or industry representatives.

We interviewed Mike Faulise, Barbara Layer, and Alan Raymond of Shell, who all confirmed that Edler was an RIK employee they dealt with on both a professional and social basis. Both Faulise and Layer remembered her attending the annual Shell outings. During Faulise’s interview, we showed him a February 2004 e-mail he wrote to Edler stating, “Nobody will say anything about you being here for the night. As far as I’m concerned, you were in a hotel.” Edler responded, “Mikey:..you are sooo wonderful You know how much I totally adore you.”

Shell managers used immoral tactics directed against employees of a U.S. government department to seek commercial advantage. This included obtaining confidential, commercially valuable information belonging to a third party. Déjà Vue All Over Again.

LEAFLET ENDS

RELATED PESN.com Article

Sex, Drugs, and Rockin’ Oil

Are we surprised to find out that the U.S. government employees who oversee offshore oil drilling turn out to be literally and figuratively ‘in bed’ with the oil industry?  A compilation of news stories about this scandal.

by Sterling D. Allan
Pure Energy Systems News

None of us in the renewable energy sector are surprised by the scandal that was announced Wednesday involving sex and drug favors to the U.S. Department of Interior personnel overseeing offshore oil drilling.

This embarrassing illustration of the cozy relationship between the Bush administration and the oil industry is now paraded before the world.  This unveiling of the wizard behind the curtain can be a positive thing for the quest to move toward renewable energy sources.

The day prior to the report’s release, President Bush had a private lunch with Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, the man in charge of the agency at the heart of the scandal.  To be a fly on the wall during that meeting . . .

The allegations of scandalous behavior involve a dozen or so government employees in Denver and Washington.  Their task is to sell U.S. mineral rights to oil companies — contracts worth eight billion annually, providing one of the government’s biggest sources of revenue besides taxes.

According to the inspector general, they rigged contracts, and engaged in illegal moonlighting, drugs, sex and gift-taking from oil company representatives.

The report allegations include:

* An employee who attended a so-called “treasure hunt” in the desert with all expenses paid by an oil producer.

* A former supervisor who bought cocaine from a colleague, then boosted her performance award, had sex with subordinates and steered government contracts to an outside business where he also worked.

CBS News reported that “no one – from the oil companies to the workers allegedly involved – provided a response today other than to say they cooperated with the investigation, or appropriate action will be taken.”

SELECTION OF RELATED NEWS STORIES

Shell Sex and Drugs Scandal

U.S. Department of The Interior: Office of Inspector General: Investigative Report of Gregory W. Smith (Redacted) 7 August 2008 Pages 1 to 22 (By accepting the Shell gratuities in fiscal years 2003, 2004, and 2005, and by accepting the GWEC .
gratuities in 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005, Smith violated federal ethics regulations that prohibited accepting
items valued in excess of either $20 per occasion or $50 in total from one source in a given year. )

U.S. Department of The Interior: Office of Inspector General: Investigative Report of MMS Oil Marketing Group – Lakewood (Redacted) 19 August 2008 Pages 1 to 31

Denver Post: Sex, drugs alleged in oil deals: 10 September 2008 (Many of the alleged misdeeds occurred when Gale Norton was secretary of the interior. Now a general counsel with Shell in Denver, Norton declined to comment, even when asked to address the portion of the reports dealing with the department she headed.)

The Denver Post: Interior Dept, scandal: Sex, Drugs alleged in oil deals: 10 September 2008

CNN: Sex, drugs, gifts uncovered in government oil probe: 10 September 2008

The New York Times: Sex, Drug Use and Graft Cited in Interior Department: 10 Sept 2008

Reuters: US gov’t workers in oil industry sex, drug scandal: 10 September 2008

Forbes.com: Sex, Drugs and Oil: 10 September 2008

Wall Street Journal: Federal Oil Officials Accused In Sex and Drugs Scandal: 11 September 2008 (The report named four companies — Chevron Corp., a U.S. unit of Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Gary-Williams Energy Corp. and Hess Corp. — as gift givers.)

BBC News: US oil agency rapped over conduct: 11 Sept 2008

Reuters: US Interior Secy ‘outraged’ by oil-sex scandal: 11 September 2008

USAToday: Oil brokers sex scandal may affect drilling debate: 11 September 2008

CBS News: Sex Scandal Taints Oil Drilling Debate: 11 September 2008

Daily Telegraph: US government staff ‘had sex and drugs with energy firm employees’: 12 Sept 2008

Baltimore Sun: Viewpoint: Sex, drugs and natural gas royalties: 17 September 2008

Reuters: US House hearing looks into gov’t oil-sex scandal: 18 September 2008

The Wall Street Journal: Lawmakers Assail Interior Over Scandal: 19 September 2008

Investigative Report of MMS Oil Marketing Group -Lakewood (Redacted) for U.S. Department of the Interior: Office of the Inspector General: 19 August 2008

Investigative Report of Gregory W. Smith (Redacted) for U.S. Department of the Interior: Office of the Inspector General: 19 August 2008

CNN: Whistleblower: Oil watchdog agency ‘cult of corruption’: 14 October 2008

New York Times: Eight Years of Madoffs: 10 January 2009

Shell in U.S. Gov. Sex, Drugs and Corruption Scandal: 24 January 2009 (John Donovan article)