Royal Dutch Shell and its Nigerian subsidiary have lost a long-running dispute to charity Friends of the Earth, after a top European court found in favour of a group of Nigerian villagers who had brought a pollution case against the oil giant.
The court of appeal at the Hague, in setting aside a 2013 judgement of the District Court of the Hague which found in favour of Shell, ordered the oil major to compensate the Nigerian farmers and members of the community for the damages caused by an oil spill that occurred in 2008, that allegedly rendered local land unusable.
