This included approving operations despite pipelines needing urgent repairs and mounting a campaign to shift public blame onto oil thieves.
Explosive new internal documents from oil giant Shell reveal how senior executives knowingly left illegal pipeline connections in place, directed damage control from the parent company, and mounted a public relations campaign to deflect scrutiny over devastating oil spills in Nigeria's Niger Delta, according to Nigerian human rights organisation HEDA Resource Centre and campaign group Hawkmoth.
The never-before-seen emails, internal memos, presentations and reports, released following pressure from the two groups during ongoing legal proceedings in the English High Courts, contradict more than a decade of Shell's legal arguments that its parent company had no involvement in or liability for environmental damage caused by its Nigerian subsidiary, Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC).
The documents show that senior executives of then-parent company Royal Dutch Shell were not only aware of the environmental destruction but were directly directing subsidiary management on how to respond.
This included approving operations despite pipelines needing urgent repairs and mounting a campaign to shift public blame onto oil thieves.
