Hakluyt, the London-founded corporate intelligence consultancy with a reputation for attracting former MI6 operatives, has announced the opening of its new North American headquarters in New York.
For those unfamiliar:
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Hakluyt was co-founded in the mid-1990s by former MI6 officers.
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Its early private-sector patrons included senior executives at Royal Dutch Shell.
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It has been widely described in media and governance circles as the “commercial arm of MI6.”
To Shell critics, none of this is surprising.
Shell to the Lifeboats: North Sea Crisis, Corporate Vanishing Act, and the Smell of Crude Regret
Let’s dispense with the pleasantries. Shell plc is not merely an energy company; it is a sprawling, global financial leviathan whose primary business model appears to be extracting profits while externalizing costs—be they environmental, social, or ethical. For institutional investors like BlackRock or the Vanguard Group, who collectively hold billions in Shell stock, the continuous stream of controversy is the invisible, oily film covering their ESG mandates. The price of their dividends is paid in the currency of compromised ethics, a truth most vividly highlighted not by any official company report, but by the relentless, decades-long scrutiny of two private individuals.
In recent days, I observed that the parody images I requested from ChatGPT for use in my articles about Shell no longer appeared to resemble Shell’s logo as closely as they had before. The stylistic shift was abrupt enough to raise an obvious question: 
Disclaimer 
John Donovan’s revealing entire chat with Microsoft Copilot about Shell Ethics on 29 Oct 2025. Nothing has been deleted. John Donovan’s questions and instructions are in red text. 
How Shell Accidentally Endorsed Its Loudest Critics — And Then Pretended It Didn’t Happen
In the corridors of global energy, Shell presents itself as a monolithic symbol of industrial prowess, dividend reliability and transition ambition. Investors like BlackRock, Inc. and The Vanguard Group, Inc. hold sizeable stakes. Yet behind the investor-slides and glossy sustainability pledges lies a series of historical shadows: offshore disasters, legacy pollution, human-rights litigation and repeated admissions of safety underperformance. This article takes a tour through select episodes—chronologically arranged—of how Shell has, in many instances, placed lives and safety on the back burner. While satire underpins the tone, the facts are stubbornly real.
Here’s the latest on Shell plc’s plan to move its listing to New York — with an investigative, critical lens.
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.
