Marketing Week: Don takes its payment fight to Shell's AGM (26/05/95)

26 May 1995,

Sales promotion agency Don Marketing has carried out its long-standing threat to picket Shell's annual general meeting (MW January 20), while at the same time also having direct talks with Shell.

The two companies are to meet in court on June 24 over Don's accusation that Shell used its ideas in a series of promotions without permission or payment. Representatives from Don handed out leaflets to staff and shareholders at Shell's AGM, headed "A Shell Game: a game of deception", which suggested questions delegates should raise at the meeting.

During the AGM, Alfred Donovan - father of Don Marketing managing director John Donovan - requested a meeting with John Jennings, chairman of Shell transport and trading. Donovan senior runs the Shell Corporate Conscience Pressure Group, set up to canvass support among Shell retailers.

The meeting between Donovan and Jennings took place after the AGM, though Shell says this does not indicate any change in its position and emphasises that legal action is continuing.

Shell also claims that Donovan asked the company if it would adopt "binding arbitration" schemes to allow disputes to be settled without recourse to legal action. No one at Don Marketing would comment on the latest moves.

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