SUBJECT: SEC INQUIRY INTO ROYAL DUTCH SHELL GROUP OVERSTATEMENT OF RESERVES
Dear Mr Stark
Thank you for the response to my email. I have noted the comments about confidentiality which I will of course respect.
I would however like to take up the invitation to provide further information.
I have now analysed the website articles which were the subject of an injunction obtained by eight Royal Dutch Shell companies in the Malaya High Court against the unfortunate Dr John Huong. I fear that Dr Huong is caught in the crossfire of a much bigger battle being waged in the UK. I refer to the long-standing acrimony between my family and Shell. The ultimate David and Goliath contest.
The relevant website articles did contain comments by Dr Huong in relation to Sir Mark Moody-Stuart and Shell Legal Director Richard Wiseman in connection with the reserves scandal. In the first instalment dated 10 June 2004, Dr Huong castigated them as Shell leaders for setting an example of a corporate culture of deceit which was imitated by executives in the operating companies. The same instalment also contained a call by Dr Huong for the immediate resignation of every Shell director tainted by the reserves scandal, including by name, Mr Van der Veer and Mr Malcolm Brinded.
In the second instalment Dr Huong quoted from an article published in the Independent newspaper on 20 April 2004, written by Damian Reed, City Editor. The article covers the findings of the investigation, undertaken by Davis Polk & Wardwell, the American law firm, at the request of Shell. Dr Huong appears to claim that he was the source for the article although this is not absolutely clear.
As previously indicated I will happily supply the three articles if so requested by the Securities & Exchange Commission together with other documents in my keeping including a considerable volume of incontrovertible documentary evidence of the Royal Dutch Shell Group deliberately concealing highly sensitive information from its own shareholders.
Earlier this evening, I faxed some of the relevant documents to the New York law firm of Bernstein Liebhard & Lifshitz LLP in connection with the class action law suit against Royal Dutch Shell and named current and former directors, including Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, being brought on behalf of the lead plaintiff, the Pennsylvania State Pension Fund.
I have printed extracts below from the covering letter dated 6 July 2004: -
I attach a copy of a letter dated 6 April 1998 from Ms Jyoti Munsiff, the Company Secretary Shell Transport and Trading Company plc sent on behalf of Mark Moody-Stuart, the then Chairman and Managing Director of Shell Transport. I have also supplied a related threatening letter from Mark Mood-Stuart himself dated 9 April 1998. At the time Sir Mark was a Group Managing Director of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. He remains a director of Shell Transport.
The letters relate to the document I supplied on Friday and prove beyond any doubt the intent at the very highest level of Shell management to deliberately hide embarrassing/sensitive information from the parties/individuals that actually own the company – Shell shareholders.
I have also supplied the response letter sent to Moody-Stuart by my son. I draw your attention in particular to the latter half of the bottom paragraph of the first page which states: -
“Yet you are not prepared for the same information to be supplied, even on a confidential basis, to the people who actually own the company - your shareholders. Your decision to keep company members in the dark speaks absolute volumes. So much for the core principle of “openness”. When it comes to the crunch, covering-up a catalogue of misdeeds by Shell managers, despite incontrovertible evidence of flagrant breaches of the principles of honesty and integrity, apparently takes priority.”
Is this not a classic example of the management culture which ended with the destruction of Shell’s reputation?
END OF EXTRACTS
Yours sincerely
Alfred Donovan
CC.
silapragasan.mailvaganam@shell.com