“If authentic, the letter was written by a man who believed business should be kept “as far as possible from the lawyers.” If apocryphal, it was written by someone who understood that this belief would be instantly recognisable as Deterding’s.”
If the letter attributed to Sir Henri Deterding is authentic, one thing is certain:
he could never have imagined that, nearly a century later, a machine would be analysing his words.
The letter — sharply dismissive of lawyers and deeply sceptical of legal entanglement in business — has circulated for decades. Its authorship has never been conclusively proven. Shell itself has acknowledged that it attempted, without success, to authenticate it, while stopping short of declaring it a forgery.
That unresolved status matters.
EBOOK TITLE: “SIR HENRI DETERDING AND THE NAZI HISTORY OF ROYAL DUTCH SHELL” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON
EBOOK TITLE: “JOHN DONOVAN, SHELL’S NIGHTMARE: MY EPIC FEUD WITH THE UNSCRUPULOUS OIL GIANT ROYAL DUTCH SHELL” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.
EBOOK TITLE: “TOXIC FACTS ABOUT SHELL REMOVED FROM WIKIPEDIA: HOW SHELL BECAME THE MOST HATED BRAND IN THE WORLD” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.
