News and information on Royal Dutch Shell Plc
Court filing confirms that Shell settled a claim from Crockett Oaks III involving serious allegations against Shell and Shell Spymaster James W.D. Hall
By John Donovan
I reported in August 1917 that Mr Crockett Oaks III, Shell security manager for the Americas, received a ‘big bucks’ court case settlement from Shell.
The litigation arose from an alleged pattern of discrimination in favour of ‘White Brits’ by Shell and Shell Corporate Security VP James WD Hall, a British national.
By John Donovan
Earlier this year Crockett Oaks III sued Shell for allegedly firing him after he objected to hiring preferences based on age and gender. Oaks and a selecition committee chose a 53-year-old man with a military background for a security advisor opening, but Shell executives allegedly blocked his hiring and directed Oaks to find a young, female candidate instead, according to court documents.
Shell’s attempt to kill damaging US litigation involving senior managers in Shell Corporate Security, including Spymaster James W.D. Hall
By John Donovan
I have provided links (1) (2) to the latest legal submissions (including a motion to dismiss) made by Shell in defence of a discrimination claim by Mr Walied Shater.
He is the third senior member of Shell Corporate Security who has sued Shell Oil Company alleging discrimination by the head of Shell Corporate Security, Mr James W.D. Hall.
Shell gripe website sucked into US litigation between warring Shell global security spymasters
By John Donovan
Our article – “Spectacular falling out of ‘Security Professionals’ at the top of Shell” – is reprinted on several pages of a recently filed 177-page “Exhibit A” in an astonishing lawsuit involving the head of Shell Global Corporate Affairs Security, James W.D. Hall.
Mr Hall has faced a succession of accusers, starting with the Security Manager for Shell Oil Company, Crockett Oaks III. Shell settled his claim. Mr Mike Oliveri, another guy with a senior military/security affairs background also sued Shell on related allegations involving Mr Hall. Mr Oliveri is a decorated war veteran, a Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve. Mr Hall’s current accuser is Mr Walied Shater a former US Secret Service agent.
By John Donovan
Last Sunday I was described in the Channel 4 TV documentary Joe Lycett vs The Oil Giant as Shell’s No1 Enemy and as Shell’s nightmare. (Transcript of the relevant segment)
Within days I seem to have lost both titles to a billionaire upstart, Daniel Loeb, who seems intent on breaking up Shell.
From my unique perspective on Shell senior management over recent decades, he is right to question competence and direction.
How has Shell ended up with a foe (me) operating a website using the top-level domain name royaldutchshellplc.com and as a consequence dealing on Shell’s behalf with job applications and all manner of other email correspondence meant for Shell? This is the humiliating situation Shell has been in since 2005. Evidently, no one at Shell has had the gumption to do anything to put an end to such a farce.
Image Credit: KICKBACK NEWS
By John Donovan
KickBack.news, the anti-corruption website recently founded by Javier Ferrandis has published a remarkable article under the headline:
DONOVAN vs. SHELL: A 30 Years Epic battle against a corporate giant.
Extract
Disgruntled employees, interested in learning about or airing the dirty laundry of the Shell Group, or journalists, who want to find out what’s up at one of the largest corporations in the world, know that you have to start your search by simply typing royaldutchshellplc.com on your browser.
Damaging leak involving Shell VP James WD Hall, until recently Head of Shell Global Security
Please let me know by 7 pm UK time today if you challenge the authenticity of the extracts from source Shell internal comms, including a related attachment circulated at the highest levels of Royal Dutch Shell Plc on 1st Sept 2021.
THE WEBSITE WHERE SHELL’S “INTERNAL LAUNDRY” HANGS OUT ONLINE
The above-embedded image is from a Shell CONFIDENTIAL internal email involving Shell lawyers and Shell Corporate Affairs Security (CAS). It was obtained in response to a John Donovan SAR application under the UK Data Protection Act 1998 and provides irrefutable evidence of Shell secretly spying on its own employees on a global basis. The names of those involved in the spying project were all redacted by Shell lawyers.
For more information, Google “Reuters report Shell critic says oil major targeting his website”
Extracts below relating to Shell and Hakluyt from a SPUTNIK article by Kit Klarenberg: 27 Sept 2019 (SPUTNIK IS A RUSSIAN OWNED PUBLISHER)
In 1995, private intelligence agency Hakluyt & Company was established. Its ranks were filled with former members of British foreign intelligence agency MI6 – including Fitzroy Maclean, upon which Ian Fleming modelled James Bond – and also oil industry executives. William Purves, CEO of Shell Transport, was chair 2000 – 2008, Peter Holmes, former Shell chair served as the agency’s president, and Peter Cazalet, former BP deputy chair, helped set up Hakluyt before he retired in 2000.
Use your browser to enlarge image
By John Donovan
I have published several articles over the years naming many Shell senior security people. They include the MI6 hires referred to by Royal Dutch Shell CEO Ben van Beurden in a wiretapped telephone conversation relating to the OPL 245 corruption case.
Some of their names have come up in leaked emails that have recently appeared on the Internet. I have combined the various emails into a single document.
The email participants include a former senior British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) officer, Ian Forbes McCredie who until December 2010, was VP Corporate Affairs Security, Shell International B.V. Mr McCredie is closely associated with the private spy firm Hakluyt sometimes described as the commercial offshoot of MI6. When I sent an email to Mr McCredie at Shell, I received an automated response giving me his Hakluyt email address.
The screenshot Information about James W.D. Hall, Head of Royal Dutch Shell Global Corporate Security was downloaded on 11 June 2019 and assumed to be correct and current at that time. He is in charge of over 250 Shell security supervisory staff worldwide. Is he yet another Shell MI6 hire, as per his predecessor, Ian Forbes McCredie? The selection of authentic high-level Shell internal emails below provides some indication of the character and ethics of senior Shell executives and Shell’s hired spooks. More court exhibits will be added on a regular basis until further notice. 
U.S. Court Case 4:17-cv-01970Related article: Spectacular falling out of ‘Security Professionals’ at the top of Shell
Mr. Hall’s own e-mails and statements clearly prove that he violated Section 3.4 of Shell’s Code of Conduct, which states, in relevant part, that “[w]hen making employment decisions, including hiring, evaluation, promotion, training, development, discipline, compensation and termination, you must base them solely on objective factors, including merit, qualifications, performance and business considerations. . . . [Y]ou should understand the value of diversity and must not discriminate in any way based on race, colour, religion, age, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, disability, ethnic origin or nationality.”
Printed below is a translation of an article published this weekend by the Dutch broadcaster NRC. It is about the Shell internal communications and documents relating to the OPL 245 Nigerian oil deal corruption case seized during a raid carried out by the Dutch Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD) at Shell HQ in the Hague in 2016. In a controversial move, Shell lawyers are resorting to legal machinations to frustrate the progress of the Dutch proceedings. On this occasion by claiming legal privilege and secrecy over the seized evidence. Criminal proceedings relating to the same massively corrupt oil deal are moving forward quickly in Italy (but at a snail’s pace in the Netherlands, Shell’s home country). A related tapped telephone conversation involving Shell CEO Ben van Beurden when he ordered that no documents should be volunteered to the investigators carrying out the raid can be heard here. Undisputably, another Shell cover-up tactic. So much for Shell’s claimed business principles from a company that seems to employ more MI6 people than MI6. Listen to the taped call. 
Call for OM to simplify procedures related to non-disclosure law encounters astonishment among lawyers and scientists
By our editors Carola Houtekamer and Merijn Rengers: Amsterdam.
Shell and the Public Prosecution Service were honest about it on Thursday. Yes, they clash over the internal Shell documents that were seized by the FIOD investigation service at the head office in The Hague during the beginning of 2016. They deal with the corruption case involving OPL245, a mega-oil field off the coast of Nigeria.
Esther Kiobel and John Donovan, 28 April 2019, days before a Dutch court ruled in favour of Esther and her co-plaintiffs in an action against Shell allowing their case to proceed
ARTICLE ENDS
Disclosure by the author of this article: The lead claimant Esther Kiobel, her lawyer Channa Samkalden of the Dutch human rights law firm Prakken d’Oliveira representing the widows, and the acclaimed human rights organisation Amnesty International, have all acknowledged the involvement of John Donovan in bringing *this case. (*See Writ of Summons in English and Dutch served on Shell 28 June 2017 – copy obtained from US Pacer public electronic court records) As Esther generously said on 28 April 2019, the Dutch case would not have happened without the help of John Donovan.
By John DonovanShell internal email correspondence relating to the OPL 245 oil deal has been very revealing and may seal the fate of defendants in the Italian trial, including the former MI6 people hired by Shell. Their names, Guy Colgate and John Copleston, appeared on the emails.
Oaks refused to countenance a policy of illegal discrimination insisted upon by his boss James W.D. Hall, Vice President of Corporate Security, located at Royal Dutch Shell plc’s Global Headquarters in the Netherlands. Hall, a mysterious British Citizen, is the alleged Mr Nasty in this matter. He is described in the Complaint as “the top executive in Shell’s entire Corporate Security Organization…”Shell had many opportunities to intervene in this matter and correct the illegal and wrongful actions of James W.D. Hall, that were in violation of Shell’s Code of Conduct and the laws of the United States. Instead, Shell leadership at the highest levels of the Company chose to rally behind the discriminatory actions of Mr. Hall, and erect a facade designed to try to cover up Mr. Hall’s illegal discrimination.
Now Mike Oliveri is suing Shell on pretty much the same grounds, perhaps salivating at the prospect of a similar big bucks settlement to buy his silence. He knows all about Shell’s wrong-headed support for James W.D. Hall despite the blatant disregard by Mr Hall of Shell’s claimed business principles and his underhanded retaliation against Oaks and Oliveri when they stood up against his ill-treatment of them.
Bruce Culpepper, Shell’s then US Country Chairman and Shell Oil Company President
James W.D. Hall, Vice President of Corporate Security, located at Royal Dutch Shell plc’s Global Headquarters in the Netherlands.
By John Donovan
Shell is a major investor in Putin’s Russia, which uses revenues from hydrocarbon sales to finance illegal and immoral wars against Ukraine and Syria. Not to mention the murder of Russian and UK citizens using outlawed radioactive and chemical weapons.
Shell’s main business partner in Russia is Gazprom, whose board is filled with former KGB and other questionable characters.
Shell is partnering with Gazprom on Sakhalin 2, the Nordstream II pipeline and the Baltic LNG project.
: Been on hold for over an hour now. No idea what the customer service is like because I can't get through to anyone. Why did you take over Post Office Broadband customers as you clearly don't have enough staff to cope?
: Uncaring, horrible, hassling, profiteering bunch. I'm 80 with bipolar disorder I am an 80 year old with multiple health issues and diagnosed with bipolar disorder. These people at shell energy are disgusting. I've been unable to log into my account for months. I live in a one bedroom flat and they are taking £250 per month from me, that's before the increases in October. Despite contacting them, I still can't log into my account. I've now been told my (not so) smart meter can't be reached and I have to provide monthly meter readings, when I can barely get down stairs from my flat to the meter because of mobility issues. Worse than that, when I put my email address in to change my password and access the account, I was suddenly logged into an account in the name of Mr Knox, at an address I don't know, who they claim owes them £4,800 and hasn't made a payment in months. It's neither my name nor address. This isn't my account, but it has my personal email address registered against it. Despite advising them of this, I received the standard 'we are receiving a high volume of messages' garbage. They have since emailed me another bill for the imaginary Mr Knox. They are hassling me by sending me someone elses bills and bringing me to the verge of a mental breakdown. According to my son, £250, which they have taken from my bank EVERY month, is way too much for a one bedroom flat too, but I have no idea what I have used because my email logs me into another account in another area. IF THEY DON'T SORT THIS OUT, I'M GOING TO HAVE A MENTAL BREAKDOWN. ASK MY DOCTOR. Uncaring, horrible, hassling, profiteering bunch.
: Useless broadband and company,40 minutes on hold on phone about my internet dropping all the time,told openreach would come on the Monday, NOTHING no call message or openreach. Sent email wanting to know how long I've left on contract as I want to leave them and get another provider NOTHING. I hate ringing up having to wait almost 40 minutes on hold only to talk to someone who don't have any idea what they talking about.
: SHELL'S NOTICE TO VACATE NIGERIA OVER UNENDING OIL THEFT: NOT GOOD FOR THE NATION The rampant oil theft that is forcing Shell out of the Niger Delta, indeed out of Nigeria is one critical embarrassment that has overwhelmed a Federal Government that has failed in all sectors of the country. The petroleum sector remains the only sector footing the entire bills of the country, yet attention is not being given to protecting it from ceaseless sabotage. Against law-abiding citizens engaged in legitimate peaceful protests, trigger-happy security operatives will swing into action to crush any peaceful protest. The common man is driving his car on the road, Police will act to intimidate him, with all manner of contorted allegations and threats, to extort him. But then assign security operatives to check oil theft, they get so connected in no time and begin to aid and abet the oil theft they are mobilised at an outrageous cost to the nation. So, the Military and Nigeria Security & Civil Defense Corps (NSCDC) are as much connected to oil theft as the oil theft is connected to the host communities' leaders, oil company workers and contractors responsible for welding/clamping/clean-up/remediation contracts induced by vandalism. They vandalise pipes and valves to steal crude oil and condensate and the more these occur the more contracts are awarded for repairs/clamping of pipelines and clean-up/remediation activities. So, a lot of people are connected to oil theft beyond those who sell and buy the stolen condensate and crude oil. The fight against oil theft has become a lost battle as they sabotage with a huge economic toll on the commonwealth will continue to thrive, hence Shell has decided to quit her Niger Delta operations to concentrate on the 'deep sea offshore' of the Niger Delta that illegal bunkering syndicates can't access easily. In other shades of oil theft, you have DPR staff that are supposed to keep records of production and volume exported also involved in under declaration of figures. A lot is happening behind the scene at the points of exports, in the terminals. Even among key stakeholders like the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Ministry of Petroleum Resources, NNPC and Accountant General of the Federation, it's an annual drama of conflicting figures when they are subjected to probe and accountability on the revenue generated from oil, condensate and gas, given a particular time frame. Again, the violent youths, also known as restive youths, created by Niger-Delta politicians are also there to disrupt the operations of Shell (SPDC) and other oil companies. Because politicians are not accessible immediately after they win elections and can only engage a few as personal aides thereafter, the rest are going about wreaking havoc on oil companies which they look up to as alternative governments. What's more, politicians and Public officeholders in the Niger Delta are only interested in the monthly allocations from Abuja from which they allocate outrageous portions into security votes that are never accounted for, contracts are inflated to syphon kickbacks into private vaults. All of these stakeholders' knaveries are making onshore operations so unattractive to Shell and other International Oil Companies(IOCs). And it's not a good one if they have to leave. By Zik Gbemre July 13, 2022
: Shell Energy Retail wants to increase customers by over 300% by 2030, however there's no mention about the level of satisfaction that will entail. https://www.shell.co.uk/media/speeches-and-articles.html
: David Bunch aims to more than treble Shell Retail Energy customers by 2030, but no mention about current customer satisfaction. https://www.shell.co.uk/media/speeches-and-articles.html
: I recently moved from a home where I was a Shell Energy customer, to a home that is also supplied by Shell Energy. After 5+ calls and emails promising me my account and most importantly, my tariff, would be carried over, they have failed to do so and they are now ignoring my emails. Their customer service is absolutely diabolical.
: Firstly i have no problem with the broadband quality and general customer service but i have just had a horrendous experience trying to cancel my contract in favour of virgin. i made it very very very clear i just wanted to cancel but the bloke insisted endlessly on try to persuade me otherwise to the point where i was getting proper stressed out. i won't ever go back to Shell
: Where do I start ... AGAIN! Just received ANOTHER message from you regarding my account! Advising me to contact debt management company!. I am, as I keep TRYING to tell you, I'm on Universal Credit but, at the moment I've been sanctioned until the end of July, and also have a hardship fund payment of £*** which I have to pay back until next February! I have no money for all my usual bills off-line this one, so maybe YOU can tell me how I'm supposed to pay this bill with no money! I can't even afford to buy food to last me a month. I have NO MONEY! If Green Star Energy I ad sorted out this problem in the 1st place, I wouldn't be in this mess! Unfortunately I don't have a money tree in my garden, not do I have a money making machine. I'm as poor as a church mouse! I haven't had enough money for 3 years now! Is anyone else having problems with this company? I'll say no more!
: Was with the Post Office broadband until Shell took over. Was emailed to activate my account which I did , WiFi went off. Called several times was kept waiting for someone to answer, must now total 4 hours +. Eventually Ayisha answered must be a fault on the line from the exchange. Then router not recognised! Engineer appointment was made for 31/5/22 — 8am till 1 pm No show. Rang again why no show..Naeem says I’ll transfw you to the technical team ..was cut off. Emailed customer help, reply line is ok , reset your router with a pin, check your wires are fully in the plug. Pat, said she will contact outreach either Tuesday or Wednesday. Meanwhile I’m without WiFi? What’s occurring Shell?
: The Offshore Alliance and the Electrical Trades Union (ETU) have both served Shell with formal notice that industrial action will commence on the Prelude FLNG facility on 10 June.
: 
I've had an utter nightmare with Shell. After I inherited my fathers house in Jan they have been nothing but trouble.
I called them within a week of the house being put in my name and told them I do not live near the house and to put the account in my name and send any bills to my address. I made it very clear that I would be paying any bills, was happy to do so, and where to send them. Fast forward to early April, we visit the house to find bill after bill addressed "to the occupier".
Again I got in touch right away and told them the NEED to put the account in my name as I won't be visiting the house again as it was set to sell at the end of April. I spoke to a representative who said "No worries, just call us when the house sells and we will settle the account". I did just that and paid them. However I've checked my credit score and have multiple negatives which are now preventing me getting a mortgage. As if dealing with the death of a parent isn't difficult enough Shell have now prevented me getting a mortgage for the next 7 years!!
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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.
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