Alame v Shell PLC [2024] EWCA Civ 1500

The Court of Appeal delivered judgment in the Bille and Ogale Group Litigation, a large-scale environmental group action brought by communities in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria against Shell PLC, the UK-domiciled parent company of the Royal Dutch Shell group. The proceedings alleged that oil spills and environmental contamination caused by the operations of Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary had resulted in devastating damage to the claimants’ land, water resources, livelihoods, and health. The litigation was funded by Gramercy and other litigation funders, reflecting the role of third-party funding in enabling access to the English courts for claimants who would otherwise lack the resources to pursue claims against a multinational corporation. The Court of Appeal addressed jurisdictional and procedural issues that arose from the cross-border nature of the claims. Key questions included whether the English courts had jurisdiction over claims arising from the operations of a foreign subsidiary, the applicable law governing the tortious claims, and the procedural management of group litigation involving thousands of individual claimants in multiple affected communities.

The case sat within a broader body of litigation exploring the liability of UK-domiciled parent companies for environmental damage caused by their overseas subsidiaries, following the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Vedanta Resources v Lungowe [2019] UKSC 20. The Alame proceedings tested the boundaries of parent company duty of care in the environmental tort context and raised questions about the standard of environmental management required of parent companies with respect to their subsidiaries’ operations. For the litigation funding market, the case exemplified the role of third-party funding in facilitating access to justice for communities in developing countries who have suffered environmental harm. The scale and complexity of such claims, combined with the geographical and evidential challenges they present, make them commercially viable only with substantial external funding.