Extracts from the ebook “John Donovan, Shell’s Nightmare” (now available on Amazon websites globally)
(BACKGROUND INFORMATION ABOUT SHELL’S EPIC 25 YEAR FEUD WITH JOHN DONOVAN – which puts the extracts below in overall context.)
Shell Production Geologist turned whistleblower, Dr. John Huong
From pages 51 & 52
Extracts Begin
SHELL DEFAMATION PROCEEDINGS INVOLVING OUR WEBSITE
In June 2004, we published information supplied to us by Dr. John Huong, a Shell Malaysia Production Geologist who had worked for the company for decades. He was probably the first Shell employee to blow the whistle internally on the Shell reserves fraud, described on BBC TV as the biggest fraud in history.
I put Dr. Huong into contact with the New York lawyers acting for the lead plaintiffs in a related Shell shareholder class action in which our website played an important facilitating role.
Shell’s response to the information published on our website in his name was draconian.
Eight Royal Dutch Shell Group companies collectively obtained an Interim Injunction and Restraining Order against Dr. Huong in the Malaysian High Court alleging the postings on our website amounted to defamation. Additional proceedings against him were issued by the same Shell plaintiff companies in 2006 in respect of further publications on our website.
The additional proceedings included a “Notice to Show Cause” relating to a “contempt of court” action potentially punishable by imprisonment.
Dr. Huong claimed that Shell engaged in dirty tricks, threats, and surveillance operations against him and his family. Suffice it to say that he felt sufficiently concerned for his own safety that he resorted to using bodyguards.
The entire litigation, in progress for several years, was eventually settled by Shell out of court.
More information, including court documents, is available.
Overall, Shell had about as much success in the defamation courts as it did in respect of the IP theft litigation and more recent domain name proceedings: none at all.
Extracts from the John Donovan ebook end.
RELATED
Geological Society of Malaysia Seminar 26 & 27 November 1991 – see pages 260, 261 (photo No.20), 268 and 274
(Shell settled the high court litigation brought by John Donovan in relation to SHELL SMART and related libel actions. Shell paid all legal costs said to be over £1 million pounds and John Donovan received a secret payment as part of the settlement, the full terms of which were deliberately withheld by Shell from the Judge, the late Mr Justice Laddie. The judge made comments at the end of the trial unaware of the terms of settlement. The comments made by the judge later triggered a repudiation of the settlement by Shell.)
EARLIER EXTRACTS
John Donovan, Shell’s nightmare: Genesis
John Donovan, Shell’s nightmare: Süddeutsche Zeitung article
GERMAN TV: John Donovan’s revelations cost Shell billions
ARGUS FSU ENERGY INTERVIEW WITH KREMLIN ATTACK DOG, OLEG MITVOL
How Shell lost its majority stake in Sakhalin II
John Donovan, Group Chairman, Royal Dutch Shell PLC companies
Donovan family relationship with Shell
Long association with the Royal Dutch Shell
Since the 1990s, Shell has been at war with John Donovan
An unscrupulous Shell executive
SHELL PROJECT HERCULES RIGGED TENDER PROCESS
Shell caught red-handed in Make Money deception
Donovan Defamation Actions Against Shell
Shell in legal row over Smart Card
Defamatory Posters on Display at Shell HQ
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.