Financial Times: Shell faces action by 26 pension funds: “Shell has paid more than $150m in fines by US and UK regulators after admitting two years ago to exaggerating the size of its "proved" reserves.” : “Shell last year paid $90m to settle claims brought by its US employees, who also claimed their pension fund had been hit by the reserves restatements.”: Tuesday 10 January 2006
By Thomas Catan in London and Ian Bickerton inAmsterdam
Published: January 10 2006
Royal Dutch Shell is being sued by 26 mostly Dutch pension funds for overstating its oil reserves between 1999 and 2003.
Led by ABP, Europe's largest retirement fund, the pension funds have withdrawn from a class-action lawsuit in the US and launched their own claim in a New Jersey court for several hundred million dollars.
ABP alone is seeking $150m (£85m) in damages from Shell. Grant & Eisenhofer, the US law firm representing the plaintiffs, declined to specify how much the group as a whole was claiming, saying only that it was in the "hundreds of millions of dollars".
Shell vowed to fight the new case, which names several current and former company executives including Sir Philip Watts, the former chairman, and Jeroen van der Veer, the chief executive. As the case is pending, Shell declined to comment.
ABP said the group had broken away from the US class action lawsuit because of the risk that non-US investors might be excluded from any subsequent settlement or decision. By that time, the European investors fear that the deadline for any further legal action would have expired.
A lawyer for ABP said: "We did ask Shell to postpone the expiry of our rights voluntarily, but they refused."
Other plaintiffs include retirement funds representing Dutch physiotherapists, hairdressers, public transport workers, metalworkers and even window-washers. ABP also said that Morley Fund Management of the UK was involved in the suit.
Shell has paid more than $150m in fines by US and UK regulators after admitting two years ago to exaggerating the size of its "proved" reserves. The reserves downgrades led to the departure of Sir Philip along with two other senior executives.
Shell last year paid $90m to settle claims brought by its US employees, who also claimed their pension fund had been hit by the reserves restatements.
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