Shell critic John Donovan

…in a spectacular blunder, Shell neglected to register what was the top-level domain name for the new company. Shell lawyers discovered, no doubt to their consternation and horror, that their most enduring critic had beaten them to the registration of royaldutchshellplc.com

Extracts from the ebook “John Donovan, Shell’s Nightmare” (now available on Amazon websites globally)

Extracts from pages 149 & 150

In 2004, a huge scandal engulfed the Royal Dutch Shell Group after it fraudulently over-stated its claimed oil and gas reserves – the most important factor in determining the value of an oil company.

As a direct consequence, the Anglo-Dutch arms of the Royal Dutch Shell Group – Shell Transport and Trading Company Plc and Royal Dutch Petroleum Company, were forced to merge into a single new company: Royal Dutch Shell Plc.

However, in a spectacular blunder, Shell neglected to register what was the top-level domain name for the new company. Shell lawyers discovered, no doubt to their consternation and horror, that their most enduring critic had beaten them to the registration of royaldutchshellplc.com. read more

John Donovan 1984

By John Donovan

My company Don Marketing supplied the spectacularly successful Shell Make Money game that ran on Shell forecourts during 1984/5 in a number of countries, including the UK. 

Years later, Shell deliberately ignored the signed confirmation of agreement below while surreptitiously producing a subsequent flawed Shell Make Money without our knowledge or consent. 

Shell executives blatantly lied about what was going on but was forced to settle the matter after Don Marketing issued a High Court Writ. read more

Peter Robinson’s dossier on Shell Nigerian corruption?

FROM A POSTING ON OUR SHELL BLOG – IS THE AUTHOR THE “STREET FIGHTER” PETER ROBINSON?

Dear John,

I believe Shell are in trouble. Deep trouble. Not only has this OPL OML debacle seen the back of some of its most senior execs, Brinded, Voser, Henry etc but now we can expect to see a Pandora’s Box being opened by Peter Robinson. I expect fireworks. The company is very quick when it comes to deploying its resources to bully and shut up it’s external critics or shamelessly pay off those that dare to challenge them. However, in Robinson they are going in to battle with a street fighter who will fight dirty and go down fighting given the alternative is to spend years behind bars. Robinson is a very shrewd business man and will have records of all the corrupt practices that the company was part of, the processes being flouted and the management who were turning a blind eye. I’ve been to Nigeria a few times on business and am always left dumbfounded by how many dodgy things take place in the offices and are part of everyday life. Robinson spent years there and will have an extensive dossier. I think its too late now for Shell to be able to stop the likes of Robinson opening their mouths, with the use of money. Having made an enemy of him points again to seriously incompetent senior advisors within the company. Had no-one heard of ‘keep your friends close, keep your enemies even closer’? It will be a very slippery slope. Van Beurden should use a part of his obscene salary it invest in a good tin hat. I would also advise him to have a good summer clear out of all those who have been advising him on the matter, and of those who failed to stop this from becoming an issue as big, if not bigger, than the infamous reserves scandal. read more

Printed below is an English translation of an article published today by the Dutch Financial Times, Financieele Dagblad. 

Shell is hoisting arch-rival ExxonMobil in the neck

Bert van Dijk • Entrepreneurship: 

A few more weeks and the champagne bottles can be uncorked at Shell headquarters. Then the British-Dutch oil and gas multinational for the first time in decades again greater in terms of market value than arch-rival ExxonMobil. At least, if the current price development at both companies continues at the current rate.

Where Exxon has had to deal with setbacks that have affected production, results and returns in recent years, investors are actually charmed by Shell’s growing cash flow, his lucrative oil and gas projects in the deep sea near the US and Brazil, the big financial discipline and cost savings. Important also: an announced share repurchase of $ 25 billion in the period up to the end of 2020. read more

UPDATED: UNDATED

Comment on Bill Campbell *article by “Concerned employee” (Confidential contact information supplied)

I share your sentiments wholeheartedly Bill. The company has been caught with its pants down, with senior staff most likely involved in kickbacks. How could this have got through the numerous assurance including Integrity teams, Auditors etc who all form part of the checks and balances to ensure this is easily picked up (particularly in Nigeria). Either the company is full of incompetence, or there has been a blind eye turned to such corruption. I say (a lot of) both. The amounts of money involved is not loose change. I say this problem is endemic in many of the hardship countries we do business in. Shell is dark, corrupt and dirty and I am beginning to question if I am working for a far more sinister company than I originally thought. And this is playing on my mind.

*Stunned and outraged by Shell’s denouncement of Peter Robinson 

RESPONSE FROM BILL CAMPBELL, RETIRED HSE GROUP AUDITOR, SHELL INTERNATIONAL

Concerned employee

Thank you for your comments. One of the observable symptoms of a corrupt and unethical organisation or individual is when it or they are critical of others whilst ignoring their own faults. Ben van Beurden may be, by all accounts, a nice man and perhaps the most competent chief executive RDS has had since the reserves crisis, but he exhibits a common failing that of shear hypocrisy. Remember, way back in those heady days of 1999, the first year coincidentally that the Company posted a negative reserves ratio, a younger Ben was one of a few aides de camp, protecting and assisting Phil Watts and masking this information at the time from shareholders, investors et al. read more

Extract 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.)

Extract below from pages 55, 56, 57 & 58 consisting of an informed damning judgement (in June 2004) on Shell management by Dr. John Huong a Shell Production Geologist. He blew the whistle internally on the reserves fraud that resulted in the forced merger of Shell Transport and Trading and Royal Dutch Petroleum, into Royal Dutch Shell Plc in 2005. He was fired for being a person man of high integrity. Eight companies in the Shell group jointly sued him for defamation, but eventually, six years later, settled that action along with his claim against Shell for wrongful dismissal.

Extract Begins

CONTENT OF A LEAFLET PUBLISHED ON OUR WEBSITE AND CIRCULATED IN JUNE 2004 AT THE SHELL CENTRE, LONDON. ALL EXTRACTS FROM COMMENTS MADE BY DR. JOHN HUONG

“I will supply for publication further informed comment and revelations in the run up to Shell’s AGM on 28 June. It will include examples of the toxic combination of arrogance, greed, dishonesty, and blatant disregard for all ethical norms by Shell Management, that has culminated in the current shame heaped upon the once proud Shell name.” read more

Email Sent To Prakken d’Oliveira by John Donovan, Sunday 10 December 2017

Be Warned: Your Law Firm is Almost Certainly Under Surveillance Again!

As Prakken d’Oliveira is aware, for more than two decades I have operated websites focussed on the *global misdeeds of Royal Dutch Shell. In more recent years, mainly via my websites royaldutchshellplc.com and royaldutchshellgroup.com. I make the above warning based on my own experience during a long drawn out acrimonious relationship with Shell.

Perceived as an arch-enemy, I have been the target of multiple spying operations carried out over many years at the behest of Shell senior management. I have irrefutable proof in the form of letters of admission by Shell and confidential Shell internal communications obtained in response to SAR applications under the Data Protection Act. UK police have carried out  investigations covering burglaries, threats of violence and repeated cyber attacks. read more

Malcolm Brinded – ethically challenged President of the Energy Institute and Chairman of the Shell Foundation. 

By John Donovan

I recently received an email asking how it is possible that the Energy Institute could have a crook as its president. A reference to Malcolm Brinded, alleged in the email to have a “history of quasi psychopathic behaviour towards hundreds of offshore workers put at risk for years to protect Brinded’s personal ambitions.”

Brinded was elected as President of the Energy Institute on 4 July 2017. Equally astonishing is the fact that Brinded also remains Chairman of the Shell Foundation. read more

Comment by Bill Campbell (retired HSE Group Auditor of Shell International) on the article “Corruption charge looms for outgoing BHP director Malcolm Brinded” 

It was good news for those who care for Shell and it’s reputation when Brinded and his guard dog Ruddock were shown the door in 2012. Brinded had contaminated the boardrooms of Shell UK and RDS for 15 years with his toxic behaviour. Corruption of external parties also in the shape of the North Sea safety reguluator using his special relationship with the then Secretary of State for Scotland. Still wary of the demise of reputation during the reserves debacle it seems the Chairman and his counsel with the support of the non executives called time on Brinded sensing Shell was heading yet again into the scandal zone. read more

Former Royal Dutch Shell executive director Malcolm Brinded (above left), sucked up to the Libyan dictator Muammar al-Gaddafi, the monster ultimately responsible for the Pan-Am 103 bombing and other terrorist atrocities. They include the murder of a British police constable Yvonne Fletcher shot outside the Libyan Embassy in London while policing an anti-Gaddafi demonstration. (Mr Brinded is currently embroiled in the OPL 245 Nigerian corruption scandal and previously had starring roles in the Brent Bravo “TFA” scandal and the Shell oil reserves fraud.)

By John Donovan

A chilling documentary “Mad Dog: Gaddafi’s Secret World” is currently available to view on BBC Player, but only for another 4 weeks. It is about “the dark world of Colonel Gaddafi, the Libyan dictator who combined oil and the implied threat of terror to turn western powers into cowed appeasers”.

Another throughly disreputable politician makes an appearance. The then UK Prime Minister Tony Blair is shown embracing and kissing the monstrous dictator on both cheeks before announcing a £1billion Libyan oil deal with Shell. Blair knew all about Gaddafi’s terrorist exploits, but like Shell, put money before principle, as he inevitably does. Naturally, then Shell boss Malcolm Brinded was up to his neck in the scandalous deal. read more

“Shell is very different from Enron. We were criticized for that some time ago and I’’m glad we have a absolutely rock-solid way we do business. It’s all completely transparent, as far as Shell is concerned.”

By John Donovan

Following publication of my article Shell false pledges of transparency and openness contributors to this website have been accused of hating Shell. That is not the case.

Many of us do, however, take great exception to the hypocritical claims made by successive RDS Chairman and CEO’s over many years that Shell operates within an ethical code – the General Business Principles – which includes a pledge of transparency.

Shell Group Chairman Sir Mark Moody-Stuart preached transparency while conspiring with senior colleagues to hide information from Shell shareholders. read more

UPDATED WITH POSTING BY BILL CAMPBELL, RETIRED HSE GROUP AUDITOR, SHELL INTERNATIONAL

By John Donovan

I warned Shell for over a decade that Malcolm Brinded (above) has no scruples. Indeed, in 2009, I published an article under the headline: Royal Dutch Shell Fat Cat Malcolm Brinded: Big Brain but no scruples.

Brinded was an executive director of Royal Dutch Shell Plc until 2012 and is still Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Shell Foundation.

It is, therefore, interesting, to say the least, that he is named in an Italian prosecutor’s report as one of the senior Shell executives involved in the $1.3 billion OPL 245 deal, said to be a massive scam. read more

Kashagan AKA “Cash All Gone”

Forgot the initial cost estimate, probably around $8-10 billion. Now 10+ years too late and ballooned to $50 billion. Most normal companies would have gone bust long ago.

Shell inherited some beauties from the boys of the roaring 90s. I hope someone will write a book one day on this era. 

Reserve crisis, Pearl, Sakhalin, Kashagan, Alaska, tarsands, and I must have forgotten a few. Repeated over-promise and under-delivery. All many billions over budget, extreme overruns in startup, loss in AAA status, removal of operational and technical expertise. I find the silence on Prelude ominous. Probably goes the same way as the others. read more

LINK TO ARTICLE

JOHN DONOVAN SAR APPLICATION LETTER TO SHELL INTERNATIONAL LIMITED UNDER THE DATA PROTECTION ACT 1998

19 July 2016

Mr. Gary Thomson SI-LSC/K
Shell International Limited
40 Bank Street
London E14 5NR

Dear Mr Thomson

Data Protection Act 1998 – Subject Access Request (SAR)

Thank you for your email dated 19 July 2016.

Please find enclosed completed application forms together with a postal order for £10 made out to Royal Dutch Shell Plc.

I obtained it before finding out that the fee can now instead be paid to a charity.

As you are aware, I operate royaldutchshellplc.com – a website focussed on the activities of Shell. read more

From April 2016:

Shell guilty of energy fraud and market manipulation in the US

From August 2004:

Shell settles fraud case for $150M

Oil company agrees to pay SEC for overstating reserves, also settles market abuse case in Britain.

The settlements are not just for fraud but range all the way to complicity in murder.

New York Times: “Shell Settles Dumping Suit for $3 Million“: 9 February 1995

New York Times: “SHELL SETTLES ROYALTIES CASE FOR $33.5 MILLION“: 21 March 2002

Shell Oil Company Limestone Township $26 million settlement: December 2007

Plaintiffs win $66 million from Shell Oil after making the mistake of relying on Shell’s “honesty and integrity”: 17 May 2008

Houston Chronicle: Shell will pay millions to settle air pollution suit: 23 April 2009

Guardian: Shell agrees to pay compensation for execution of Saro-Wiwa: June 2009 read more

By John Donovan

Interesting to read that seven years after the departure of Sir Mark Moody-Stuart (right) as chairman of the mining giant Anglo American, the company is in difficulties.

See Dow Jones news article: Anglo American to Downsize Further After Steep Loss.

Apparently the troubled company is in the throes of “an aggressive restructuring.”

Reminiscent in some respects of the state of affairs at Shell during and after the tenure of Sir Mark as Group Chairman.

The Wall Street Journal reported in November 2004 “How Shell’s Move To Revamp Culture Ended in Scandal.“ read more