Shell-LiveChat.com:  Challenged to say something positive about Royal Dutch Shell: 23 August 2006

By John Donovan

The following comment was posted by guest 1731 on our “Live Chat” facility on 22 August 2006:

“The remarks in the Richard Wiseman story come across as being melodramatic. Do you have any proof that what you are saying is true? Have you not got anything positive to say about him or Shell?”

The following was my light hearted response:

“Guest 1731 thanks for your interesting and perfectly reasonable questions. Are you a colleague of Mr Wiseman or is this he in person? If so, we are honoured by your visit. In any event, we will respond in detail tomorrow. Suffice it to say that we do have proof about the agent activity (Mr Wiseman is already painfully aware of this fact.) With regards to positive comments, we will need time to put our minds to that challenge.”

This is my more serious response.

I will deal first with the positive side of Richard Wiseman.

I have crossed swords with Mr Wiseman for over a decade in multiple legal actions.  He is a lawyer, so a degree of cunning and evasion is to be expected. He is easy to wind-up and I seem to know what buttons to press.  When annoyed, he has been known to make mistakes.  On the positive side, Mr Wiseman is a gentleman who, in my assessment, will not tell outright lies on behalf of Shell. Consequently, when he has issued denials on behalf of Shell, I believe he has done so in good faith. He has been more forthright than anyone else in the company, other than Sir John Jennings, who I got on with very well and admired greatly. It would have been better for Shell and its shareholders if Mr Wiseman had been promoted to senior management instead of thoroughly disingenuous, unscrupulous and incompetent individuals, such as Sir Philip Watts and Malcolm Brinded.

With regards to making positive comments about Shell, I drafted the sections on the “Royal Dutch Shell” Wikipedia page about Shell’s admirable “LiveWIRE” scheme and "The Shell Foundation".  I did so out of disgust that no one at Shell or its Advertising or PR agencies had bothered to add these important genuinely positive aspects of Shell.  The aim of Wikipedia is to provide a balanced neutral picture and these two sections were badly needed for this reason. I shall invoice Shell in due course.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Dutch_Shell

I will now deal in more detail with Shell’s undercover activities.

During the course of bouts of litigation with Shell over the years, my family and I were deluged by threats from Shell management from the Group Chairman down. Their lawyers actually had the breathtaking arrogance to state in writing their intention to make the litigation process “drawn out and difficult” – thus blatantly making clear the deliberate intent to exhaust the funds of a financially weaker opponent.

Such tactics were bad enough. What we did not anticipate is that in the SMART litigation (relating to the Shell SMART loyalty card), Shell would resort to sinister undercover operations involving dark forces. 

Shell has admitted (Sunday Times story 17 July 2001) that UNDERCOVER agents acting on its behalf engaged in deception, subversion, infiltration and sabotage during the course of wide-ranging clandestine activity targeted at NGO’s with whom Shell was at loggerheads during the relevant period. It has only more recently come to light that Shell directors were in fact the ultimate spymasters of the UNDERCOVER agents involved in the sinister covert activities. Shell and the spy firm Hakluyt & Company Limited, set up by former MI6 officers’ shared common directors and shareholders. The list of directors and other individuals associated with Hakluyt reads like a roll call of the UK establishment – a cavalcade of titled elite including many individuals with a military background. Members of Parliament have identified Hakluyt as being the commercial arm of the British Secret Service. 

My son and I had co-founded an NGO – the Shell Corporate Conscience Pressure Group whose campaigning activities against Shell made a considerable impact. Nearly 15% of all Shell retailers in the UK joined the organisation. Over a thousand participated in surveys about Shell's ethical conduct, the results (which were disastrous for Shell) were published in full page announcements in the national media. Taking into account the legitimate activities of the pressure group and the highly acrimonious litigation, it is now plain that we were prime targets for Shell covert counter-measures against NGO’s.

It all went wrong for Shell in our case when we caught one Shell UNDERCOVER agent (“Christopher Phillips”) red-handed engaging in dishonest activity on Shell’s behalf; this involved blatant deception, using fake credentials and tampering with private mail.  He was but one of a number of individuals who engaged in subterfuge when contacting my solicitor, witnesses and our office staff. Shell and its lawyers have admitted in writing the “activities” of “Mr Phillips”.  Mr Wiseman denied that Shell had any connection with other underhand activities. This is probably because unknown to Mr Wiseman, such activities were authorised at a higher level.

When I complained to Shell about the activities of “Christopher Phillips”, rather than being shamefaced, a lawyer acting for Shell, Mr Colin Joseph, the then senior partner of Kendall Freeman, stated in writing that other agents had been retained on our case.  Despite requests from my sons’ solicitors, Shell lawyers would not disclose the scope of the brief given to their agents and also refused to disclose the number of agents involved. There could be only one explanation for Mr Joseph making this point. It was outright intimidation. We still have his letter.

By co-incidence or otherwise, threats were made during the same period against my family and our witnesses by an individual who proved that he had insider knowledge of the litigation. He gave my son advance notice of actions which Shell subsequently took.  This strategy was clearly designed to substantiate his credibility and therefore the veracity of the threats which he made against my family and our witnesses.

The Police investigated the witness intimidation and highly suspicious series of burglaries at the home of my son’s solicitor in Croydon, a key witness in Norfolk, and at our own home in Bury St Edmunds. The Police carried out interviews at Shell Mex House in London. Shell also carried out its own internal investigation.

I believe it is fair to speculate that the Police would have been extremely interested to know that Shell/Hakluyt was secretly engaged on a widespread basis in the same type of cloak and dagger activity which was directed at us by an unknown party; a party which obviously had very deep pockets. How could we or the Police have possibly have guessed that senior titled Shell directors were the ultimate spymasters of a shadowy spy firm, Hakluyt? None of this was disclosed to the Police by Shell. 

Cost was clearly not a concern as in one instance an American by the name of ***** ****** arrived from overseas under cover of being an investigative reporter working on a story for “The European”. We later discovered from the newspapers editor that this was false. During his mission Mr ****** interviewed my sons solicitor, plus key witnesses, one of which he traced within 24 hours although we had not provided any contact details. Mr ****** then departed the UK. After making overseas enquiries, The Guardian newspaper determined that Mr ****** is a “spook”. In fact I now have incontrovertible documentary evidence of his involvement with the US Intelligence community. The clinching evidence, obtained from the US National Security archive, only came to light as a result of the US Freedom of Information Act.   I have removed his name to protect him and his family. His name was however supplied in a letter I sent to Prime Minister Blair on this subject.

In relation to Mr ******  it is interesting to note that: -

(1)            A Hakluyt director is on record as stating that it is their normal modus operandi to bring in operatives from overseas to engage in spying/intelligence gathering activities. The undercover agents then conveniently leave the legal jurisdiction in which such activities have taken place. 

(2)             Hakluyt often uses serving secret service agents who carry out freelance assignments. This was the case in respect of The Sunday Times story.

Mr ******* was not the only “investigative reporter” using fake credentials to gain information. “Mr Daniel Wilson” spoke to my solicitor on the basis of being a Daily Express journalist. This again was later found to be an entirely false claim.    

In at least two of the burglaries, documents were sought out and tampered with. This included a privileged document which had been the subject of an unsuccessful Court application by Shell lawyers. Kendall Freeman senior partner, Mr Colin Joseph, had vowed after the hearing that he would obtain it. Perhaps it was purely coincidental that his firm represented the Harrods boss, Mohamed Fayed, in the libel action brought against him by Neil Hamilton, the former MP. Hamilton lost the case and then (unsuccessfully) appealed the decision after it was discovered that documents had been stolen from his premises prior to the case coming to Court. The documents had been passed to Mohamed Fayed who used them to his advantage during the trial.  

What Shell has admitted: Shell and its lawyers have admitted in writing that Mr Christopher Phillips was retained on behalf of Shell. It also admitted its association with the Hakluyt freelance agent and serving member of the German Secret Service, Manfred Schlickenrieder, who engaged in deception, sabotage and infiltration in a number of Countries on Shell’s behalf, including Nigeria. This was in relation to the case of Ken Saro-Wiwa, the Nobel Laureate hanged by the then Nigerian military regime for peacefully opposing Shell’s activities in the Niger Delta. Shell has now admitted that its activities have contributed to the corruption and violence in Nigeria.  All of this conduct is entirely at odds with Shell management’s “core principles” in its Statement of General Business Principles pledging “honesty, integrity and openness in all of its dealings”. It is important to note that there is a pattern in Shell’s admittances. They are only made when evidence of wrongdoing is so overwhelming that Shell cannot make plausible denials.

What Shell has denied: Shell has categorically denied any association with the burglaries, with Mr ******, or in regards to any intimidation against us. Shell has ignored all questions and indeed any reference to its close association with Hakluyt: for some reason that appears to be a taboo subject. I wonder why?

INTRIGUE HEAPED UPON INTRIGUE

It is understandable that being in the spook trade, Hakluyt naturally keeps a low public profile. We did however manage to penetrate the veil of secrecy to some extent in June 2004 when we communicated with Hakluyt by phone, fax and email. We wrote to the then Managing Director, Mr Christopher James, formerly (or currently) a senior MI6 Officer. He co-founded the spy firm along with the late Sir Fitzroy Maclean (on whom the “James Bond” character is supposedly based) and Mike Reynolds, who founded MI6’s counterterrorism branch (and was once “head of station” in Berlin). At the time of its launch, Hakluyt (according to its directors) had the blessing of the then head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, popularly known as “C” and reportedly a close friend of Mr Reynolds. 

You can imagine our surprise when we received an email response from a lawyer at The Church of England’s legal department. He was initially completely baffled why Hakluyt had relayed our letter to his department. It turned out that it was meant to reach Sir Anthony Hammond QC. He is the Standing Counsel to the General Synod of the Church of English while also being chief legal advisor to Hakluyt (and a director of the spy firm). This struck me as being a novel combination of interests – on the one side a beacon of light, goodness, hope and redemption and on the other, an international practitioner of the black arts; espionage, subversion, infiltration, deception, etc.

We subsequently received a carefully drafted letter from Mr James which on casual inspection appears to deny any involvement by Hakluyt but actually only indicates that Mr James had no personal knowledge of any such involvement. We pointed this lawyerly escape clause out to Mr James but received no further clarification. His response would have obviously carried more weight if he had simply stated that Hakluyt had no involvement in our case. That is an answer it cannot or will not give.

Common sense suggests that Shell management would be more likely to use what was in effect an in-house resource than calling in one of the other spy/risk consultancy firms, such as Kroll Associates (although this cannot be ruled out).

Coincidentally I received on 4 June 2004 a letter from Mr Alistair Corbett, Clerk to the Intelligence and Security Committee advising that Rt. Hon. Ann Taylor MP, Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee intended to bring to the attention of her Committee colleagues a letter I had sent to every MP entitled “Hakluyt – The Commercial Arm of MI6?” I subsequently advised Mr Corbett of the bizarre developments with the Church of England and Sir Anthony Hammond bearing in mind that his Committee has oversight responsibility in respect of UK security agencies. At this point Mr Corbett’s tone in correspondence suddenly became decidedly hostile. Mr Corbett claimed that his committee did not enter into correspondence, even though the Intelligence and Security Committee instigated the correspondence with me. We never even knew it existed until we heard from them.

If my father and I had known that we were taking on not only the Royal Dutch Shell Group but also the British Establishment and possibly the British Secret Service we might have thought better of trying to obtain justice.

At the end of our last High Court action with Shell, the Judge, Mr Justice Laddie, quoted in open court an entire passage from my letter published by “Marketing Week” magazine a few months before the trial. He had obviously read the entire letter which also contained the following passage: “During the current litigation, Shell has employed undercover investigators who have used outright deception in the course of their activities. I have a letter from Shell’s legal director, Richard Wiseman, admitting Shell’s association with the covert activities (copy available on request).” For some reason the Judge ignored this passage entirely and during the whole three week trial, had not raised a single question about Shell’s undercover agents and associated intimidation, nor made any reference to such activity in his closing remarks.

Mr Justice Laddie had failed to disclose all of his connections with Shell. After we wrote to the Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, bringing this and other matters concerning the Judges inexplicable behaviour, Laddie subsequently resigned in controversial circumstances, apparently on bad terms with Lord Falconer. Sir Hugh Laddie, as he is now known, has recently been involved in a commercial project with Shell General Counsel, Richard Wiseman, who represented Shell in court throughout the three week trial. Sir Hugh now works for a law consultancy which boasts of having Shell as a client.

Shell instigated an out of court settlement of my SMART claim. A so called “joint” press statement was issued at the end of the trial announcing a “stalemate” outcome. In fact Shell paid all of my legal costs and I also received a secret payment negotiated under duress after being subjected to the campaign of witness intimidation, threats and undercover activity directed against my family.

My letter to Marketing Week quoted by Mr Justice Laddie was published under the headline “Judge Shell by actions not words”.  It was in response to an article which claimed that Shell had reformed its ethical conduct. I warned that this was not the case. We now all know that I was absolutely right. Shell was at the time already engaged in a massive fraud relating to its oil and gas reserves. Shell has paid $150 million (US) in fines agreed with financial regulators in respect of the supply of false information to the financial markets concerning its hydrocarbon reserves. It has agreed to settle for over $100 million two U.S. class actions lawsuits and set aside $500 million to settle a consolidated class action in which we have been involved.

Consequently, although it is possible to make some positive comments about Shell's activities, from my perspective, the positive is greatly outweighed by the dark side of the company, including senior managements staunch support for dishonest employees, even though aware of how they ruthlessly cheated suppliers who trusted Shell.

SUMMARY

The unusual events set out above ARE the stuff of drama and emotion. The impact has been considerable, including in terms of financial loss. What was once a mutually beneficial business relationship between Shell and my family (spanning 50 years as of next year), turned into an epic duel. Our highly successful business, with a global reputation, ceased to exist because of corrupt practices at Shell endorsed by senior management (including Malcolm Brinded).  Shell management remains stubborn in its intentions to cover-up and deny all mistakes of the past, preferring to rely on vast financial advantage and an army of lawyers to discredit and intimidate anyone who gets in Shell's way; the policy they are currently using against Shell whistleblower, Dr Huong. Has anyone ever heard of such overkill: EIGHT Royal Dutch Shell companies suing one unemployed former Shell employee of 29 years standing. I have indeed a great deal of documentary proof for all that I write, more than enough information to publish many books. A company such as Shell, with such enormous power, should take greater responsibility in its actions. No-one should be allowed to get away with the unethical conduct we constantly see from one of the largest and most powerful companies in the world. Finally, I would acknowledge that Shell's disgraceful and unforgivable conduct towards my family is insignificant compared with the truly obscene way it has treated the people of Nigeria, plundering tens of billions over the decades, while leaving the local populations living in a polluted environment and in abject poverty.  There is only one word to describe such activity: evil.

ARTICLE ENDS

THE RESERVES FRAUD:

I will just mention a few of the relevant lawsuits.

The majority of the directors of Royal Dutch Shell Plc are Defendants in a global class action lawsuit against Shell in respect of the reserves fraud.  The Plaintiffs include the Pennsylvania State Employees Retirement System. Shell CEO Jeroen van der Veer is one of the Defendants. To the best of my knowledge, he is still under investigation by the US Justice Department on possible criminal charges which could yet see him ultimately end up in a U.S. Federal prison.

http://www.shell2004.com/class action docs/shellnewsnet-global-class-action-3-march-2006.htm

Shell has already agreed to settle for $90 million USD a U.S. lawsuit brought by brought by current and former Shell employees enrolled in savings plans covered by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, or Erisa. ( http://shellnews.net/week28/wall_street_journalshell13july2005.htm )

Shell has also agreed to settle an action by Shell shareholders and the Unite National Retirement Fund and the Plumbers and Pipefitters National Pension Fund. The action alleged that the defendants breached their fiduciary duties, abused their control over the Companies, aided and abetted breaches by others, and/or committed gross mismanagement and/or constructive fraud. The named defendants included Jeroen van der Veer, Malcolm Brinded and Maarten van den Berg. In effect they made a plea bargain. Under the terms of the settlement, Royal Dutch Shell agreed to adopt and implement certain corporate governance principles including a section covering corporate ethics, honesty and legal compliance.  

http://shellnews.net/week39/stanford_law_school30sept2005.htm

http://shellnews.net/week35/shellnewsanotherclassactionsettlement31august2005.htm

Shell has already paid USD150 million dollar fines imposed by the SEC and the UK Financial Services Authority after these financial regulators found Shell guilty of providing misleading/false filings in respect of claimed hydrocarbon reserves.

SHELL'S CONDUCT IN NIGERIA

In Nigeria, Shell acted in a conspiracy with a corrupt military regime to repress a campaign led by a peace loving Nobel Laureate, Ken Saro Wiwa, who tragically ended up being hanged on false charges along with several of his close colleagues. Shell has for decades plundered and polluted in Nigeria.

http://shellnews.net/2004 Documents/nopodds/nigeria.htm