12 February 2021
Practice – Pre-trial or post-judgment relief – Striking out
The proceedings concerned two sets of proceedings, the Ogale proceedings and the Bille proceedings. In the Ogale proceedings, the claimant appellants were a Nigerian farming and fishing community of approximately 40,000 individuals. In the Bille proceedings, the claimant appellants were 2,335 individuals who lived in the Bille Kingdom, a remote riverine community in Nigeria.
The claims alleged that numerous oil spills had occurred from oil pipelines and associated infrastructure operated in the vicinity of the appellants’ communities, causing widespread environmental damage, and had not been adequately cleaned up or remediated. The appellants’ case was that the oil spills had been caused by the negligence of the second respondent pipeline operator (SPDC), a Nigerian registered company. SPDC was a subsidiary of the first respondent (RDS), a UK domiciled company and the parent company of the multina