Oil Spill: Syndicates Defraud Communities As Shell Remains Adamant On Payout

Oil Spill: Syndicates Defraud Communities As Shell Remains Adamant On Payout

Mar 1st, 2015

by John Donovan. 

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BY SAHARA REPORTERS, NEW YORK, FEB 28, 2015

An investigation by SaharaReporters reveals that several rogue syndicates have been selling oil spill compensation forms to members of oil-producing communities in Bayelsa State ostensibly to enable the residents to benefit from a fund established to compensate victims of the December 2011 Bonga oil spill. However, some concerned activists told Sahara Reporters that the sale of forms was exploitative, especially since it was not clear that those who file for compensation would ever receive any payment.

The House of Representatives and National Oil Spills Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) had in November 2014 recommended a compensation of $3.98 billion for victims of the incident.

NOSDRA estimated that 40,000 barrels of crude were discharged into the Atlantic during an operational mishap in an oil field operated by Shell Nigeria Production and Exploration Company (SNEPCO).

However, a Shell spokesman, Joseph Obari, maintained at the weekend that the Bonga spill did not hit affect the shoreline, arguing that the company should not pay any compensation.

Even so, our correspondent found out that a variety of groups were selling tens of thousands of compensation forms to residents of the oil producing communities in the state.

Ebrasin Leghemo, a member of the Koluama 2 community in Bayelsa, said that a firm of valuers, Dutch Nigeria Limited, had allocated 10,000 forms to the communities.

“There are three groups involved and we negotiated with them to give us 10,000 forms at the rate of N1,000 for indigenes and N2,000 for non indigenes,” he said, adding, “We are told that each claimant would get N400,000.”

Mr. Leghemo continued: “We heard that the House of Representatives has mandated Shell to pay $3.98 billion to the affected communities and we have secured the 10,000 slots for our community for impacted people amongst us.”

Meanwhile, various agents of the firm of valuers were in the area selling the forms in bulk. Some members of the various communities told our correspondent that they had paid between N1,000 and N1,500 to get one.

One resident, James Wilson, said he had filled out and returned a form he bought for N1,000. He said he filed claims for both the Bonga oil spill of December 2011 and Chevron’s rig explosion of January 2012. According to him, he had filed individual claims for N350,000 in damages from the two incidents.

However, Alagoa Morris, an environmental and human rights activist, has voiced concern over syndicates selling the forms to members of the oil communities. He disclosed that the activities of the ‘faceless syndicates’ were suspicious.

Mr. Morris urged the Bayelsa State government to investigate the firms behind the form-selling scheme to save unsuspecting members of the public from exploitation.

SOURCE

Extract from a comment received by Sahara Reporters

Welcome to Nigeria – The scamming “capital” of the world. From top to toe, from head to tail – all is rotten. In a country where the law enforcement and judiciary are corrupt and refuse to work with integrity, then the citizens and criminals will do as they like, knowing that next to nothing will ever happen to them, that there are no consequences to their bad behaviour. Even on the rare occasion that a cheat is caught, all they will do is bribe the police, bribe the lawyers, bribe the judges. Hardly a day passes that I myself am not cheated one way or another.

ENDS

PHOTO: London Rising Tide protestors outside the Royal Courts of Justice to highlight Shell’s devastating pollution in Nigeria

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Posted in: Africa, Environment, Litigation, Nigeria, Oil, Oil Spill, Shell, Toxic contamination.
Tagged: Niger Delta · Nigeria · Oil

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Homeland Security Funding: You Got This One Wrong, Senator Reid

SHARED FROM

SATURDAY, 28 FEBRUARY 2015

Homeland Security Funding: You Got This One Wrong, Senator Reid

BY LARRY WINES

View image | gettyimages.com

“The American people are scared, and I don’t blame them.” – U.S. Sen. Harry Reid (D, NV), Thursday morning, regarding the impending shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security.

No, Senator Reid. We are not scared. What we are is disgusted. On so many levels. And not just by Republican absolutists.

We are disgusted because we do the jobs we are hired and paid to do, but Congress does not.

We are disgusted because members of Congress routinely hold hostage the American people’s needs, and play games of brinkmanship without regard to the morale of the government employees whose jobs hang in the balance. Even when those people have those jobs to keep all of us safe.

We are disgusted because Congress is filled with payola-taking, temper-tantrum-throwing, self-absorbed babies who demand regular infusions of pablum from their fat-cat owners, pablum they then regurgitate down the backs of the rest of us.

We are disgusted because Congress is filled with payola-taking, temper-tantrum-throwing, self-absorbed babies who demand regular infusions of pablum from their fat-cat owners, pablum they then regurgitate down the backs of the rest of us.

We are disgusted by members of Congress who seem to think they are in Washington to gratify their own egos and increase their own wealth, prestige, and marketability among corporokleptocrats and banksters while ice caps melt, superstorms become the norm, and sea levels rise.

We are even a little disgusted because Congress has never changed the name of the Department of Homeland Security, which is just as creepy to American ears as the German Fatherland or the Russian Motherland.

And we are really disgusted with the hypocrisy that knows no bounds, telling us how afraid we are supposed to be of ISIL, how afraid we are supposed to be of Al-Quaida, how afraid we are supposed to be of Boko Haram, how afraid we are supposed to be of Iran, how afraid we are supposed to be of North Korea, how afraid we are supposed to be of Central American children at the border, how afraid we are supposed to be of Mexicans, how afraid we are supposed to be of people voting, and, basically, how afraid we are supposed to be of people in general.

Yet the Congress who holds the purse strings won’t fund the jobs of the specific people who are supposed to protect us from all the other people we are supposed to be afraid of.

No, Senator Reid. We are not afraid. We are too disgusted to be afraid.

It is the pampered, insulated, parsing, equivocating, puppeteering, bloviating, corporate-serving, science-denying, influence-hoarding, money-grabbing, austerity-loving, self-styled power elite that needs to be afraid. Of us.

Larry Wines

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Lynn Hughes and Shell

Lynn Hughes and Shell

Feb 28th, 2015 

by John Donovan. 

No comments yet

U.S. District Judge Lynn N. Hughes

In an extremely rare move, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has removed a case from U.S. District Lynn Hughes’ docket after the Houston federal court judge declined to rule the way the appellate court wanted in a case involving Shell Exploration.

The recent decision in United States v. Shell Exploration involves a qui tam False Claims Act (FCA) action brought by two individuals against Shell alleging that the company had failed to pay the U.S. government at least $19 million in oil royalties.

The government declined to intervene in the case.

In 2012, the Fifth Circuit reversed Hughes after he issued a summary judgment for Shell dismissing the plaintiffs’ case. The appellate court concluded in a case of first impression that the FCA did not prohibit government employees from filing qui tam actions. The appellate court also concluded in that decision that Hughes erred in dismissing the case by using an overly broad standard of “public disclosure.” The FCA bars prosecution of cases based on publicly disclosed allegations.

After the case was remanded, Shell refiled a motion for summary judgment, which Hughes granted in 2014, dismissing the plaintiffs’ claims with prejudice because of the public disclosure bar. The plaintiffs appealed Hughes’ decision to the Fifth Circuit.

In a Feb. 23 opinion, the Firth Circuit again reversed Hughes.

“Shell has not pointed to a single public disclosure of the fraudulent scheme alleged in this case, and there is no basis for applying the public disclosure bar. We therefore reverse the judgment of the district court,” Judge Eugene Davis wrote in the unpublished decision.

But this time they used an “extraordinary” and “rarely invoked” appellate court power by directing the Shell case to be assigned to another judge.

“In the prior appeal, we declined to have this case reassigned to a different judge on remand. The circumstances are now different because the district court judge disregarded our clear mandate and failed to apply the legal standards we established in our opinion for public disclosure and to address the specific questions we set out in that opinion,” Davis wrote.

“Facing a lengthy and detailed summary judgment record, the district judge issued a five-page opinion with few citations to either record evidence or relevant legal authority—not surprising given that neither the summary judgment evidence nor the law to support the conclusions he reached,” Davis wrote. “The opinion consists almost entirely of conclusory statements. The district judge reached the same conclusion he reached in his previous opinion by employing the same overly broad reasoning that we rejected before.”

The decision vacates and remands Hughes’ judgment and directs the chief judge of the Southern District of Texas to reassign the case to a different district judge.

Hughes declined to comment about the decision.

SOURCE ARTICLE – ACCESS SUBJECT TO SUBSCRIPTION

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Posted in: Litigation, Oil, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Shell, United States.
Tagged: Litigation · Oil · Royal Dutch Shell Plc

The TRUTH will set you FREE.

THE BERNIE BUZZ 28FEB15

TAKE THE POLL: Should Speaker Boehner have notified the president before inviting the Israeli prime minister to address Congress?

U.S. led negotiations to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon are at an important, difficult stage. A hotly-contested Israeli election is two weeks away. At this critical time in a volatile region, House Speaker Boehner asked Prime Minister Netanyahu to address Congress. Ignoring protocol, neither one checked with the White House, which strongly disapproves. Bernie was the first of a growing number of senators to say they won’t go to the speech next Tuesday. Boehner’s invitation politicizes U.S. foreign policy, improperly injects Congress into Israeli politics and undermines President Obama's lead role in charting U.S. foreign policy, Bernie said in an interview for the “PBS NewsHour.

	WATCH THE PBS NEWSHOUR

LISTEN CAREFULLY TO THE POPE       Bernie welcomes Pope Francis’ visit to the United States this fall. In a speech on the Senate floor, Bernie urged members of Congress to study carefully the Pope's very strong statements on poverty, income and wealth inequality and the growing economic and political power of the very rich.       WATCH

PIPELINE VETO WELCOMED       President Obama on Tuesday vetoed legislation that would allow construction of the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to Texas. “This veto tells the world that our nation takes seriously the planetary crisis of global warming and that we will not support legislation that would let a Canadian oil company ship some of the dirtiest oil on the planet across the United States," Bernie said.       READ MORE

THE PEOPLE WIN ON NET NEUTRALITY       The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday approved new rules to keep the Internet open and free. Millions of Americans weighed in, including 50,000 people who sent Bernie emails that he forwarded to the FCC. They said Internet service providers should offer a neutral gateway to everything on the Internet. “The FCC vote shows that ordinary Americans can make a difference when they stand up to powerful corporate interests and Washington lobbyists,” Bernie said.       READ MORE

INCOME INEQUALITY       With 99 percent of new income going to the top 1 percent, Sanders has laid out plans to reduce income inequality in America. He told The Wall Street Journal he’s fighting for a fair tax system that asks the wealthy and large corporations to pay their fair share. He would raise the minimum wage to a living wage and end payday discrimination against women workers. To create millions of good-paying jobs, he proposed a $1 trillion investment in rebuilding our nation’s crumbling infrastructure.       WATCH THE INTERVIEW

COMING EVENTS

National Press Club: Bernie will speak at a National Press Club luncheon on Monday, March 9.

MUST READS

Deeper Ties to Corporate Cash for Doubtful Climate Researcher     Justin Gillis and John Schwartz for The New York Times

Aging water infrastructure remains a $1-billion headache in Los Angeles     Ben Poston and Matt Stevens for the Los Angeles Times

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HOWARD_28FEB15_UPDATED RECORD OF MR. TOM HOWARD'S MANAGERIAL IRRESPONSIBILITY

from:		antonio jr. Buensuceso <antoniobuensuceso@gmail.com>
to:		Tom.Howard@waterboards.ca.gov, thoward@waterboards.ca.gov
cc:		Liz Haven , Jonathan.Bishop@waterboards.ca.gov, "Maughan, James@Waterboards" , "Gordon, Christine@Waterboards" , "Wilkinson, Wes@Waterboards" , "Cooper, Andrew@Waterboards" , anna.hernandez@waterboards.ca.gov, anna.perez@waterboards.ca.gov, "Zuccala, Debbie@Waterboards" , dzuccala@waterboards.ca.gov, Antonio Buensuceso
date:		Sat, Feb 28, 2015 at 10:08 AM
subject:		HOWARD_28FEB15_UPDATED RECORD OF MR. TOM HOWARD'S MANAGERIAL IRRESPONSIBILITY
mailed-by:		gmail.com

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SEN. BERNIE SANDERS' IMAGES 27FEB15

The TRUTH will set you FREE.

SHARED FROM

THURSDAY, 26 FEBRUARY 2015

Three Governors Who Bankrupted Their States and Want to Be President

Larry Wines: It's getting so you need a program to tell the broke red state's governors apart. Here's today's handicapping of the race.
 

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Three Governors Who Bankrupted Their States and Want to Be President

BY LARRY WINES

It’s getting so you need a program to tell the broke red state’s governors apart. Here’s today’s handicapping of the race.

• Gov. Chris Christie (R, NJ) is scrambling to satisfy an irate judge who ordered him (last year) to follow his legislature’s adopted law (which he signed) and properly fund his state’s pension fund. The amount that he is now in the hole? It’s grown to $1.56 billion.

• Gov. Bobby Jindal (R, LA) is scrambling to find a way to cover his state’s $1.6 billion deficit, after he let BP off the hook for destroying the Gulf’s ecology, and with it, his state’s economy.

• Gov. Scott Walker (R, WI) is trying to pay for his state’s financial collapse by screwing the hell out of education. Neighboring Minnesota, with a nearly identical population size, is prosperous. But Walker’s Wisconsin is a whopping $1.8 billion in the hole.

Maybe those three should take a little time off from their posturing and getting ready to run for president.

They could take an educational trip and meet with Gov. Jerry Brown (D, CA). He could show them how you can use real leadership, work with your legislature, and turn your bankrupt state around by NOT giving free rides to the rich and the corporokleptocrats. And without throwing tantrums and screwing your public employees union members and causing “a little traffic problem in Fort Lee.”

Larry Wines

The TRUTH will set you FREE.