By Alfred Donovan
Just a few comments about our claim against Shell which ended in a long High Court Trial…Prior to the “SMART” case, Shell had already settled several previous High Court actions in our favour paying several hundred thousand in damages, all of which was ploughed back into further litigation when new causes for action became apparent.
Every claim involved the same Shell manager who was also the subject of allegations and claims by other parties who had made the mistake of disclosing ideas to Shell in confidence. All of the ideas were funnelled to his pet agency with whom he had a special relationship. He also had an off-shore bank account. The track record of the relevant individual was not brought out in the trial which was heard by a Judge who failed to disclose all of his connections with Shell.
After Shell approached us during the cross examination of the relevant manager suggesting out of court settlement negotiations, I was maneuvered into accepting a compromise settlement in the most dubious circumstances. My son John did receive a settlement payment, but as stated in the article, it was a fraction of what it should have been and was accepted under duress in a similar fashion to the Sakhalin II deal forced on Shell.
A so called “joint” press statement was released announcing “a stalemate compromise settlement”. This was designed to deceive the public, the media and Shell shareholders. The High Court Judge, Mr Justice Laddie, was plainly biased in favour of Shell to the extent that I subsequently wrote complaining to the Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, drawing certain facts to his attention. By coincidence or otherwise, the Judge later resigned in controversial circumstances: the first High Court Judge to resign and then return to commercial practice, in 30 years.
Sir Hugh Laddie now works as a consultant to a legal firm of which Shell is a client. He was a close friend to the founder of the relevant company at the time of the trial. He also had an undisclosed connection with the barrister son of the then Chairman of Shell, Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, the man who had personally threatened us. Shell director Richard Wiseman played a key role in the peace settlement deal which was approved personally by Sir Mark. Wiseman later acted in breach of the treaty when he could not resist the temptation of offering to supply derogatory comments about my son, to a third party company.
That marked the end of the peace treaty and the commencement of the current campaigning activities against an unethical and incompetent Shell management as demonstrated by the reserves fraud.
BUSINESS NEW EUROPE: Shell gets stuck in a Sakhalin blog-mire
This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.