Onder 2.2 Gerechtshof Den Haag 18 december 2015

- Neither is it evident that RDS et al. assumed that Milieudefensie et al. had decided not to appeal in case c. The Court of Appeal adds, but as an aside, that there are rather clues to the contrary, i.e. that RDS et al. assumed that an appeal had been lodged in case c as well, for Milieudefensie et al. pointed to the announcement published on Shell’s website within days of the service of the notices of appeal under the heading: ‘Response from Mutiu Sunmonu’ and the sub heading: ‘Response from Mutiu Sunmonu (Managing Director SPDC) to the appeal lodged by three Nigerian farmers together with Milieudefensie, in court cases against Shell they lost in January.’ The response included the following passage: ‘We are disappointed that Milieudefensie has decided to appeal against the judgment. [..] We will now fight the court’s adoption of international jurisdiction to hear the claims against SPDC. [..] We believe that allegations made by Nigerian claimants who have a dispute with a Nigerian company about matters that took place in Nigeria should be submitted to a Nigerian court.’ Reading this announcement one should bear in mind that of the four Nigerian claimants in the interrelated cases a through f there was only one, namely F.A. Akpan, who had ‘won’ a court case against Shell, or more specifically: SPDC, albeit in parts, and who had not appealed; so that it is likely that the ‘three Nigerian farmers’ who had lost cases against Shell, or more particularly: SPDC, refers to: F.A. Oguru, A. Efanga (the Nigerian claimants in cases a and b) and Eric Dooh (the Nigerian claimant in cases c and d). On this assumption it is not likely that SPDC’s managing director responded with disappointment to the appeal lodged by ‘three Nigerian farmers’ if SPDC believed that one of those ‘three Nigerian farmers’, namely Eric Dooh, had refrained from appealing against the dismissal of the claims against SPDC (and RDS) in case c (the claims in case d are not brought against SPDC).

$ curl -s https://bron.page/api/v1/blobs/de8feb9f0194be3387388a193625674a6efa5f71b1f8db026b54aca27981e24c | shasum -a 256