Posts under ‘Our Shell Leaflets’

LEAFLET CURRENTLY BEING GIVEN TO SHELL EMPLOYEES OUTSIDE SHELL CENTRE

Shell offshore workers died as a result of Brinded’s “Touch F*** All” safety regime

Published by John Donovan of royaldutchshellplc.com Oct 2009

A criminal investigation is currently underway in Scotland relating to alleged corruption allegations involving Shell and officials of the Health & Safety Executive. The investigation follows an email a retired former HSE Group Auditor of Shell International sent to over 600 UK Members of Parliament.

Bill Campbell explained in his email (reprinted below) how the lives of Shell employees working on the Brent Bravo oil platform in the North Sea were lost after Shell senior management put production and profits before safely.

Senior officials at Royal Dutch Shell Plc had sight of Campbell’s email before it was sent. Campbell received cross-party support for his calls for an investigation.

THE BILL CAMPBELL EMAIL TO UK MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT

Subject: This could be the most important whistleblower email you have ever received.

Some unfortunate Royal Dutch Shell workers have already lost their lives. More lives are at stake.

My name is Bill Campbell. I am a former Group Auditor of Shell International. I am writing to you on a matter of conscience in an effort to avert the inevitability of another major accident in the North Sea. The consequences could potentially impact on families in many constituencies, including your own.

As Royal Dutch Shell and the Health & Safety Executive would acknowledge, I am an expert on safety matters relating to offshore oil and gas platforms. In 1999, I was appointed by Shell to lead a safety audit on the Brent Bravo platform. The audit revealed a platform management culture that basically gave a higher priority to production than the safety of Shell employees. To our astonishment we discovered that a “Touch F*** All” policy was in place. Worse still, safety records were routinely falsified and repairs bodged.

I personally brought the shocking situation to the attention of senior management including Malcolm Brinded, the then Managing Director of Shell Exploration & Production. I revealed that ESDV leak-off tests were purposely falsified, not once but many times and that Brent Bravo platform management had admitted responsibility for the dangerous practices being followed. In response to my team ringing alarm bells, management pledged to rectify the serious problems, which had been uncovered. When I later complained that the pledges were not being kept, I was removed from my oversight function.

Four years later, a massive gas leak occurred on the platform. Two workers lost their lives. I have no doubt at all that the inaction of the relevant Asset Manager, the General Manager, the Oil Director and Malcolm Brinded, contributed in some part to the unlawful killing of two persons on Brent Bravo in September 2003.

Shell subsequently pleaded guilty to breaches of the HSE regulations and a record-breaking £900,000 fine was imposed. I thought this would bring about a real change in policy to put the emphasis on safety.

Unfortunately I was wrong. Although I supplied the evidence related to 1999, and the fact that there had been a collapse in controls of integrity from 1999 to 2003 on all 16 of Shell’s North Sea offshore installations covered in a post fatality integrity review to the HSE for review by the Procurator Fiscal, none of this evidence was presented before the Sheriff at the subsequent Inquiry. The situation is explained in a letter to the Procurator Fiscal and the Sheriff (on 24th February 2007).

Shell management has engaged in spin to try to pretend that it is getting to grips with its safety problem. However, its atrocious safety record – the worst in the North Sea in terms of accidental deaths and absolute number of enforcement actions – tells a different story. This fact has resulted in a number of newspaper articles.

I have had meetings with senior Shell people including its CEO Mr. Jeroen van der Veer. I regret to say that I have found him to be economical with the truth. He prefers to support cover-up and deceit rather than confronting the underlying problems. Brinded is now Executive Director of Shell Exploration & Production. He believes in burying evidence.

My family and friends would probably prefer me to give up on this matter and enjoy my retirement after so many years working for Shell.

However, by writing to every MP in the UK, no one can ever say that I did not do my best to avert an inevitable further major accident event in the North Sea. When it happens (I pray that I am wrong) I will make this warning communication available to the media together with the vast amount of evidence in my possession.

At least my conscience is clear. I have done everything possible to ring the alarm bells about Shell management and its unscrupulous attitude to the safety of its employees.

Yours sincerely

Bill Campbell (EMAIL ENDS)

Internal correspondence we obtained from Shell under the Data Protection Act revealed that Shell had set up a countermeasures team to combat our joint campaign with Bill Campbell for Shell offshore employee safety. It was clear from the internal emails that Shell had been panic stricken by the prospect of a Campbell/Donovan campaign. Shell EP General Counsel Keith Ruddock wrote to Campbell’s solicitors desperately doing his best to kill the prospective alliance. A stated aim in the internal emails was to “detach” Campbell from the Donovans. The revelations generated newspaper headlines: “Shell on back foot as ‘gripe’ site’ alleges safety concerns” (Daily Mail) and “Pressure on Shell over safety of platforms” (Daily Telegraph).

Jeroen van der Veer was later quoted in a Guardian article in August 2007 as being “hurt” by our criticism over Shell’s safety record. Yet on 1 Feb 08, Channel 4 News led its broadcast with a 7-minute package: “Shell North Sea Safety Concerns”. On 23 Feb 08, Shell pleaded guilty at Chester Crown Court to safety offences’ arising from a potential “near disaster” at Stanlow Refinery arising from a lethal gas leak. In March 08, an UpstreamOnline article revealed that Shell had received more HSE legal notices than any other operator working in the UK North Sea. It also reported that two Brent field lifeboats, one on Brent Bravo, had to be removed from service because they were in a dangerous condition. In early October 09, an HSE Prohibition Notice was served on Shell after a potentially deadly gas leak on Shell Brent Charlie platform.

We are therefore forced to conclude that despite a Shell “safety czar” (Kieron McFadyen) being appointed, it was just another example of empty Shell PR propaganda. In reality, nothing has changed. A reckless attitude to safety issues remains the key feature of the unscrupulous reign of Shell EP / Upstream International Executive director, Malcolm “TFA” Brinded.

THE SHELL “SMART” HIGH COURT TRIAL

By John Donovan of royaldutchshellplc.com: Oct 2009

Some Shell employees may be puzzled why our leaflets are being distributed at Shell Centre a decade after a trial regarding the origin of the Shell SMART loyalty card had ended, supposedly in “stalemate”, with me withdrawing all allegations of impropriety against Shell in a so-called “joint statement”. In reality the “stalemate” announcement was a face-saving fabrication conjured up by Shell lawyers.

Shell settled the litigation in the midst of the cross-examination of a dishonest Shell manager AJL at the heart of all of our four High Court actions. Shell had already settled our first three claims. Scrutiny of his diaries and other documents released to us in discovery revealed that he was a disgruntled employee on the make. He had masterminded a corrupted tender process for our multi-partner loyalty card scheme, had stolen confidential IT property from numerous parties, including us, and funnelled them all to an agency with whom he had a close personal “private” relationship.

The diaries of AJL revealed his intent to set up his own business INSIDE Shell and make enough money to retire from the company at the age of 35. Shell internal email authored by him revealed his willingness to engage in “illegal” activity on behalf of Shell. He had an offshore bank account in which to stash his funds.

We drew the attention of ALL directors of Shell Transport, Royal Dutch Petroleum and Shell UK, to his blatantly dishonest deeds. Despite his gross violations of the SGBP, the hypocrites at the top of Shell, later involved in the reserves fraud, gave this unscrupulous manager their full support. We invited Shell UK Chairman Malcolm “TFA” Brinded to withdraw his support for AJL. He did not do so.

I received two settlement offers from Shell during the trial, accepting the second at the climax of the cross-examination of AJL. Shell paid ALL legal costs, said to be over £1 million. I also received a secret unsatisfactory payment (under duress) that was not disclosed even to the trial Judge, Mr Justice Laddie, now tragically deceased. The Judge was misled by Shell on the terms of settlement.

Shell’s underhand tactics before and during the trial and its insidious influence, destroyed the entitlement of a fair trial. Shell Legal Director Richard Wiseman, now Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer of Royal Dutch Shell Plc, directed the Mafioso style operation. It was characterised by undercover activity (admitted in writing by Wiseman after a Shell agent was caught red-handed) and a bombardment of threats from Shell Chairman Mark Moody-Stuart downwards.

There was the even more sinister activity not admitted by Shell. Threats were made against our witnesses (and us); burglaries were carried out at several homes, including the residences of my solicitor and our main witness. Undercover agents using fake cover stories besieged our solicitors, our key witnesses and us. Wiseman denied any knowledge. He confirmed that Shell carried out an internal investigation. The Police also investigated. Shell lawyers warned that other agents were at work on their behalf, but would not reveal what they were doing.

Two years after the trial we discovered that Shell had a close relationship with a commercial intelligence firm Hakluyt & Company Ltd, set up by former senior officers of MI6. Titled Shell directors were directors and major shareholders in the spy firm that unsurprisingly had Shell as a client. These Shell directors were the ultimate spymasters, of spooks engaged on an international basis, in exactly the kind of covert subversive activities directed against Shell’s perceived enemies, that had also been directed at us. Shell did not disclose its involvement in such skulduggery to the Police when they were investigating the burglaries and threats.

We were also horrified to learn that the judge, who had displayed a blatant bias towards Shell, had undisclosed connections with the oil giant, including a commercial connection with Tom Moody-Stuart, the son of the then Shell chairman. After the trial, the Judge refused to correspond with us on the issue. The same applied to Moody-Stuart. The judge failed to disclose the connection despite being aware of an unusual handwritten letter of a personal nature we had received before the trial from Judy Moody-Stuart, the wife of the Shell Chairman.

During the trial, the judge allowed Shell lawyers directed by Wiseman to engage in subterfuge and attempted entrapment. At the climax of my cross-examination, it was intimated that a motorbike messenger was on route from J Sainsbury with documents that would prove I had forged a letter. In fact there was no documents, no forgery, no messenger and no motorbike. It was all a complete fabrication by Shell. The judge had allowed this attempted entrapment to take place.

By coincidence or otherwise, after we lodged a formal complaint with the Lord Chancellor, Hugh Laddie QC resigned in controversial circumstances which brought his judgement and integrity into question. His second undisclosed connection with Shell then emerged. He joined an IP law firm that had Shell as a long-standing client. Its founder, Tony Willoughby, was his lifetime friend. Laddie and Wiseman later worked together on a commercial project. It’s a small world.

You can now understand why Richard Wiseman is behind the current attempt to prevent these leaflets from reaching Shell employees. Once again he is supporting Shell’s shameful use of subterfuge and intimidation.  Please read the extraordinary recent correspondence with Wiseman posted on our website.

How on earth is any of this arrogant and evil predatory behaviour compatible with Shell’s claimed business principles? Unfortunately the principles are a sham.

We have the evidence to substantiate everything stated herein

Two men and a website mount vendetta against an oil giant

Extracts from Sunday Times article: 19 July 09

By Danny Fortson

Shell has taken some big knocks in the attack by a father and son in Essex

By his own admission, John Donovan is “truly obsessed”. Standing in his kitchen, the 62-year-old proudly opens the cabinets to reveal shelves stacked not with food but piles of papers and ring binders.

“We don’t cook much,” he said with a chuckle. “Every cupboard in this house has papers in it. It’s the same in my bedroom; the garage is full as well. I have built up so much information so when we put something into print, we can back it up.”

A man obsessed indeed. His modest three-bedroom house in Colchester, Essex, is home to what is probably the world’s largest dossier on Royal Dutch Shell. It also serves as the headquarters for royaldutchshellplc.com, the website where Donovan and his father Alfred – frail but lucid at 92 – pursue a surprisingly effective crusade against the world’s biggest oil company.

So called “gripe sites” are common, especially for companies in highly-emotive areas such as oil, tobacco and banking. Last week Goldman Sachs decided to settle a suit filed against the man who runs a site called goldmansachs666.com after the case garnered celebrity and boosted traffic to the site. The Donovans, though, are more adept than most at inflicting damage on their target.

Their site has become a major thorn in the side of Shell, publishing a relentless stream of insider leaks and negative commentary. It is a remarkable study in the power the internet can have when it is coupled with a couple of industrious individuals with a vendetta.

John estimates that he has published more than 24,000 articles about Shell in the decade and a half since he and his father took their cause online. The website regularly publishes stories, fed to it by a handful of disgruntled executives, which are then picked up by the main-stream press. It has become a hub of activity for antiShell former employees and environmental activists. Last month it had 1.7m hits.

A few weeks ago, for example, it published a plan by new chief executive Peter Voser to slash thousands of jobs before the company was ready to make an announcement. In 2005, when the Kremlin was building a case against Shell over the Sakhalin gas project, the Donovans provided confidential documents regarding alleged environmental infractions directly to Oleg Mitvol, the minister who led the case.

Shell was ultimately forced to sell a stake to the Russians, leading to billions in lost revenue. Mitvol publicly acknowledged the help provided by the Donovans in building his case.

If only Shell knew 20 years ago what it knows now. Back in the 1980s the Donovans had a good relationship with the oil giant. They ran a marketing company that created petrol station promotions for Shell and both sides did well out of the partnership. When a new executive took over marketing, he used several of their schemes but refused to pay for them. So in 1992 they sued. After three legal actions, a fourth ended up in the High Court. In the meantime, Alfred paid people to leaflet Shell’s headquarters on the Thames in central London and they started a pair of antiShell websites.

With legal bills mounting they agreed a “peace treaty under duress” in 1999. It was not the end of the story. Sitting in the cramped study that is the operations centre for the website, John pulls a framed, A4-size oil painting from the wall. It is of Alfred’s former country home that he had to sell in 2000 to pay legal bills. “We had a good life and we had to give our mortgage to our barristers,” he said.

“Perhaps it was a mistake to pursue a case against a big corporation. Maybe it’s my Irish blood but I couldn’t accept it. It changed our lives.” Shell has been paying for it ever since.

In 2007, after the Donovans began airing concerns about safety in the North Sea, internal Shell e-mails admitted that the company was “on the back foot” and needed to “develop a strategy (or options) that puts us in a more positive and secure position” in dealing with the Donovans.

Neither man appears particularly embittered. If anything, they seem quite tickled to be able to give Shell a good kicking. Alfred, a second world war veteran who fought the Japanese in Burma, said: “It’s a laugh.”

A Shell spokesman said: “The site has a well-known and long-standing agenda. Healthy debate is welcome and encouraged but we choose not to take part if it sinks to the level of personal attacks and innuendo.”

Despite their shoestring budget and minimalist operation, the Donovans are canny operators. When they started up royaldutchshellplc. com in 2005, they incorporated it as a nonprofit site in America, where domain name law is strong. This move served them well. Shell tried to strip them of the site soon after it was opened, labelling them “cyber-squatters”, but the World Intellectual Property Organisation ruled in their favour. The Donovans have since rebooted their two predecessor websites so that the public can access all the information housed there as well.

It is an awkward position for Shell, which was this month crowned by Fortune magazine as the world’s largest company. Trying to shut the website down would draw even more attention to it but letting it continue subjects the company to a constant barrage of negative news, allegations and insults, some of which is picked up by the mainstream media.

In view of Alfred’s advanced age, John does most of the donkey work. He has the time. Unmarried and with no children, the only thing that occupies his time other than the website is his yellow labrador, which he takes for an hour’s walk every morning. He spends six hours a day, seven days a week on the site, fielding e-mails, publishing articles and corresponding with contributors. “It keeps my mind active and I get a kick out of it because we are able to help people,” he said. A nephew helps with the technical aspects of the site. They do not make any money from it and pay just $125 (£77) a month to maintain it.

John doubts that he will ever shut up shop. “There is no ultimate goal,” he said. “We started something and it has grown way beyond what we thought it would. It’s something where people can get revenge on the company or point out things that are wrong. If we can prove it, that’s a real problem for a company like Shell.” In a parting shot he said: “I will continue as long as my health holds up. Since my dad is 92, things don’t look good for Shell.”

Comment published with article: Jim Lynchehaun wrote:

I am a small investor in Shell, but I am happy to see the company held to account for its actions. It heartens me to see the Donovans doing such a fantastic job and the Sunday Times having the bottle to publish the article. July 20, 2009 9:45 AM BST

The compete article is accessible on the TIMES ONLINE website

RIGGED SHELL CONTRACT TENDER

By John Donovan of royaldutchshellplc.com

Although this story relates to events that occurred years ago, it reveals the hypocrisy of two people at the top of Shell, Malcolm Brinded and Richard Wiseman.

Both have made speeches proclaiming the importance of Shell’s General Business Principles pledging honesty, integrity and transparency in all of Shell’s dealings.

Wiseman stated in an anti-corruption speech:

“A reputation for integrity is a priceless asset which can vanish or be severely tarnished by a single error of judgment. Shell Core Values: Honesty, Integrity and Respect for People underpin everything we do and are the foundation of our Shell General Business Principles.”

Our dealings with Brinded and Wiseman arose from a series of High Court actions we brought against Shell UK. They resulted from the activities of a dishonest Shell manager, AJL, intent on setting up his own business inside Shell to exploit his position as National Promotions manager.

AJL cheated many companies who trusted Shell, perhaps lulled by the claimed code of business ethics. He ruthlessly drew them into a Machiavellian “SMART” contract tender plot masterminded by him, involving a conspiracy of Shell managers. Deception was used to steal intellectual property from companies and delay disclosure to Shell’s rivals.

AJL set out his unscrupulous plans in documents, some in his own handwriting. He funnelled confidential information gained from unsuspecting companies under false pretences, to an agency with whom he had a special relationship.

His mind set was evident from an incriminating email relating to the same project that he circulated to Shell colleagues.

Extract: “NB: To answer your last point: My note of 25/10 is the official position, my note of 9/9 expressed a personal and pragmatic view of how to handle the problem – it is in fact illegal and is certainly unofficial, and if we were discovered then we will enforce the official legal position – which is that all volume must currently be rewarded with promotional points”.

The SMART contract was miraculously awarded to the agency AJL had a special relationship with. They had not even run in the contract race. AJL had a close private relationship with its senior directors. His diaries show that he also had an offshore bank account in the Channel Islands (Jersey) into which undisclosed payments were made.

As far as we could tell, all confidential ideas disclosed to AJL and subsequently adopted by Shell were channelled to this same favoured agency. This included a series of proposals we disclosed to AJL in strictest confidence.

Never guessing that his hand-written diary entries would be exposed to scrutiny in a High Court case, AJL made entries which revealed that he was a disgruntled employee and was intent to “Set up personal business while @ Shell 35 yrs = exit date.” It was his apparent objective to exploit his position to create enough personal wealth to exit Shell at the age of 35.

Despite being aware of the extraordinary background evidence, Shell’s most senior management, including Malcolm Brinded and Wiseman, gave their unstinting support to AJL even after his treacherous behaviour was exposed.

Both of these senior Shell people gave higher priority to a thoroughly dishonest Shell manager who masterminded a corrupted tender process, than to the Shell code of business ethics, the Statement of General Business Principles.

Published by John Donovan of royaldutchshellplc.com
Email address for leaked Shell docs: john@shellnews.net

10 YEARS ON AND NOTHINGS CHANGED

By John Donovan of royaldutchshellplc.com

A decade ago we had a team outside Shell HQ handing out leaflets every week on a regular basis.

At the time, thousands of loyal experienced Shell employees were being ruthlessly culled. Shell later paid a high price for hiring contractors to replace lost skills. Is the same short-termism being repeated now?

“Transformation” under Moody-Stuart, “Transition 2009” under Peter Voser; different buzzwords, same outcome. Staff working at the coalface treated like disposable non-entities, while greedy and ruthless executive directors pump up their obscene, bonus and stock option packed, fat cat “compensation”.

Even if caught deceiving financial regulators and Shell investors, as the reserves fraudster Sir Philip Watts was, they are assured of a huge payoff ($18.5 million in his case) and are indemnified against all potential legal costs.

Interesting to note that the Form 20F declarations to the SEC highlighted Shell’s claimed General Business Principles… honesty, integrity, transparency, respect for people – all the PR crap designed to fool investors and Shell suppliers. What we have described as a confidence tricksters charter. The declared proven oil and gas reserves were, like Shell’s ethical code, illusionary.

Returning to the subject of self-aggrandisement, this is what former Shell exec Paddy Briggs said in May:

“What characterises Shell head honchos in recent times is that it is all about self. Power, position, perks and obscenely inflated bonuses and rewards – and to hell with the business or the tradition or the history of this once great company and once respected brand. And to hell with the stakeholders as well. Suppliers, Partners, local communities, employees, pensioners and society at large are the disposable small fry in the selfish and self-centered world of Van Der Veer, Cook, Brinded and the rest.”

The latest “head honcho” has added to the anxiety of some Shell employees by requiring them to reapply for their jobs. Not as bad as water boarding, but still a form of torture to those of a nervous disposition. Voser describes the insult as “an interesting exercise because we could really select those we are keen on.”

It seems a cruel undeserved imposition by the nice Mr Voser, bearing in mind that the overwhelming majority of Shell people are loyal, decent, and hard working.

Our beef is still with the hypocrites at the very top, such as Malcolm Brinded, who pay lip service to the SGBP while supporting and encouraging IP theft, a corrupted tender for a major contract, and the notorious “TFA” safety culture on North Sea Platforms which cost the lives of offshore workers.

In future leaflets, we will provide information about these and other, even more sinister Shell misdeeds.

Published by John Donovan of royaldutchshellplc.com
Email address for leaked Shell docs: john@shellnews.net