Court orders Shell pay compensation to four Nigerian farmers for oil spillage

By Oluchi Ihediuche

An appeals court in Hague, Dutch has ordered Shell company to pay compensation to four Nigerian farmers for oil spillage on their farm land.
After 13 years of legal battle the court ruled that Shell’s Nigerian branch must pay for damage caused by oil spills.
It also held the Anglo-Dutch parent company Royal Dutch Shell liable for installing new pipeline equipment to prevent further devastating spills in the Niger Delta region.

“Shell Nigeria is sentenced to compensate farmers for damages,”
The amount of damages would be determined later, it said. It did not specify how many of the four farmers would receive compensation.
The farmers first sued Shell in 2008 over pollution in their villages Goi, Oruma and Ikot Ada Udo, in southeastern Nigeria, in a case backed by the Netherlands arm of environment group Friends of the Earth.

“In the Uruma cases Shell Nigeria and… Royal Dutch Shell are ordered to equip the pipeline with a leak detection system so that environmental damage can be limited in the future,” 
‌Shell Nigeria should have shut down oil supplies on the day of the spill in the cases in Goi.