Shell Wins Bid to Limit Suit Over Nigeria Delta Oil Spill
- Judge says group couldn’t prove that spill caused damage
- Communities claimed impact of spill not felt until years later
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Shell Plc won a bid to limit a British lawsuit over an oil spill off the coast of Nigeria after a judge ruled that a group of thousands of Nigerians couldn’t prove that the disaster continued to wreak devastation on communities years later.
The Bonga oil spill in 2011 — said to be the largest spill in the Niger Delta for at least 20 years — was an environmental “catastrophe” that caused billions of dollars of damage, the Nigerian group argued. But Judge Finola O’Farrell said Thursday that far lower volumes of oil reached the coast than the group had initially argued. It wasn’t “plausible” to suggest that the stranded oil had then contaminated the delta states over three years later, she said.