East Texas Review: Fired Shell CEO gets big severance
“Shell had been cooking its books Enron-style, claiming to own way more oil reserves than it actually has.”: “Thieves In High Places”
By Jim Hightower/Special to ETR
Posted 10 Sept 04
Getting fired is one of the sourest experiences you can have – unless, of course, you’re the head honcho of a major corporation. Far from being sour, getting booted from the top suite can be a mighty sweet experience.
Take the recent case of Sir Philip B. Watts, the former chairman of Shell Oil, which is based in London. He became known to many as Sir Philip the Finagler after it was discovered in an internal investigation that, on his watch, Shell had been cooking its books Enron-style, claiming to own way more oil reserves than it actually has. Thanks to this illegal accounting, the company now faces several investigations, major fines, and class-action lawsuits.