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The Nigerians claim their shoreline faced a "devastating impact" from a leak at the Bonga oilfield, which unleashed 40,000 barrels of crude into the Gulf of Guinea. However, Shell argued that the spill was swiftly contained.
The claimants sought to overturn rulings from two lower courts, arguing that the oil spill constituted a "continuing nuisance", to which the deadline would not apply. But the Supreme Court disagreed and declared the leak was a "one-off event or an isolated escape", in a judgment that does not affect a separate legal action against Shell over other spillages.
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Judge Andrew Burrows said, "There was no continuing nuisance in this case because, outside the claimant’s land, there was no repeated activity by the defendants or an ongoing state of affairs for which the defendants were responsible that was causing continuing undue interference with the use and enjoyment of the claimants' land."
The Supreme Court noted, however, that the 2011 spill was "one of the largest spills in Nigerian oil exploration history". Lawyers for the claimants had no comment when contacted by AFP.
Nigeria, Africa's biggest crude producer, has struggled with oil spills for decades. Shell faces a separate ongoing legal case in Britain after the Supreme Court ruled in February 2021 that more than 50,000 people in the Niger Delta region can make pollution claims in English courts. The ruling overturned a 2017 decision against the Ogale and Bille communities, who brought legal claims for clean-up and compensation following decades of repeated spills in the crude-rich region.
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