PUBLISHED HERE FOR THE FIRST TIME ANYWHERE
INCONTROVERTIBLE DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE OF A DEEPLY INGRAINED SHELL CORPORATE CULTURE OF COVER-UP AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL: A POLICY OF CONSISTENTLY HIDING INFORMATION FROM SHELL SHAREHOLDERS: EXAMPLES OF THE PRACTICES WHICH FOSTERED THE SHELL RESERVES SCANDAL: INVOLVES CURRENT DIRECTORS
London Evening Standard: Shell 'has lied for 10 years' (25 June 2004)
The above story in the London Evening Standard related to the reserves scandal in which Shell senior management engaged in a massive cover-up to hide information from Shell shareholders and the regulatory authorities. However, the lies, deceit and cover-up culture was also adopted by the same Shell directors in other areas of Shell business activities during the same period. I have now published below incontrovertible documentary proof of the extraordinary extent to which Shell senior management has been prepared to go to hide information from their shareholders – the people who actually own Shell.
I acknowledge that there are tens of thousands of decent hard working people at Shell. Unfortunately they have been led by some outright confidence tricksters who say one thing and do another. They pledge honesty, integrity and openness in all of Shell's dealings, but in my experience do exactly the opposite. If you have the patience to glance through the information accessible via this page, you may reach the same regrettable conclusion as I have about the relevant Shell charlatans, some of whom still hold high office at Shell.
As you will see from the documentary evidence, this Shell corporate culture of threats, cover-up and deceit has persisted for many years right up to today. In fact the last threat against me emanated from Shell lawyers in Malaysia just a few weeks ago in their efforts on behalf of EIGHT ROYAL DUTCH SHELL companies to stop whistleblower information from former Shell geologist Dr John Huong from reaching Shell employees, Shell shareholders and the public. There is an associated High Court Restraining Order covering information published on this website. The litigation is on-going. Shell has threatened Dr Huong with imprisonment because of his insider knowledge partly in relation to the reserves debacle. Dr Huong has directly implicated Shell Transport director Sir Mark Moody-Stuart in the policies which led to the scandal. My family has also received a written threat from a Shell director in recent weeks.
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THE SHELL CONFIDENTIALITY AGREEMENTS DESIGNED TO HIDE INFORMATION FROM SHAREHOLDERS
THE FIRST GAGGING AGREEMENT SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED TO STOP INFORMATION FROM REACHING SHELL SHAREHOLDERS AT THE 1994 AGM
The letter below dated 18 May 1994 provides hard evidence of how Shell prevented shareholders at the 1994 Shell Transport AGM finding out about Shell management incompetence which led to a multimillion pounds flawed promotion in 1994 called Shell Make Money (and how Shell had stolen an idea for a Nintendo themed promotion we had put forward in strictest confidence). For more details see "SHELL MAKE MONEY COVER-UP" section below.
THE 1995 FUNDING DEED/CONFIDENTIALITY AGREEMENT: This bizarre contract may make Shell shareholders eyes pop out. The lawyers involved had never heard of anything similar.
It is a Confidentiality Agreement/Deed signed on behalf of Shell UK Ltd by its then Managing Director David Varney and by Richard Wiseman who is a director of Shell UK and General Counsel of Shell International. My son (John) and I signed on behalf of our former company, Don Marketing UK Ltd and as co-founders of an NGO, the Shell Corporate Conscience Pressure Group. As can be seen, a primary purpose of this document was to impose confidentiality. Shell management did not want its shareholders to know what was going on in their name. In other words, a cover-up.
The correspondence below is proof of how senior management years later were still insistent on keeping information about the Funding Deed and associated matters from reaching Shell shareholders.
As can be seen in the letter below, the then Chairman of Shell Transport, Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, was sufficiently agitated to actually issue a threat on behalf of Shell UK Limited. His wife, Lady Judy Moody-Stuart, subsequently intervened in the dispute without her husbands knowledge. Readers can see for themselves from the content that top management at Shell were directly involved or were copied on the incriminating correspondence, including individuals who are still Shell directors, or in the case of Jyoti Munsiff, still Company Secretary of Shell Transport.
Letter to Shell Transport Chairman Mark Moody-Stuart 1 April 1998
Reply letter from Shell Transport Chairman Mark Moody-Stuart dated 9 April 1998
Letter to Mark Moody-Stuart dated 14 April 1998 (attention is drawn in particular to paragraph five)
More information about the “Funding Deed” document and associated correspondence: The agreement is probably unique in the history of litigation involving a publicly owned corporation. Basically Shell paid our legal fees to sue them in the High Court in respect of two promotional ideas we had put to Shell in strictest confidence. Both had been secretly developed and subsequently launched without any payment or credit to our company. In return for the “funding” worth £125,000 (approximately $225,000 US dollars), we undertook to drop a libel action against Shell (after Shell had falsely alleged that our claims were “bogus”) and cease the pressure group. The full terms can be seen in the agreement. Shell eventually paid us £200,000 plus costs to settle the so called “bogus” claims. We also received an unsolicited letter of apology from a Shell Chairman.
(Click here to view relevant letter from Dr Fay dated 21 October 1996)
The Funding Deed proposal stemmed from a meeting that my son and I had with Sir John Jennings on 18 May 1995, in his then capacity as Chairman of Shell Transport and a Group Managing Director of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His fellow member of the Committee of Managing Directors, Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, was also involved in supervising the negotiation and implementation of the agreement.
The Funding Deed proposal was put to my son and me on 31 May 1995 by Dr Chris Fay, the then Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Shell UK Limited during a surreal meeting at Shell-Mex House during which a butler served tea. An offer of "Money or Justice" was put to us in the presence of Mr David Pirret, who subsequently became Chairman of Shell Brazil and who remains a senior Shell executive. We were allowed to choose one option only. We chose "justice" and Dr Fay then revealed the extraordinary proposal that Shell would pay our legal fees to sue them and give us £40k to reimburse the legal fees we had already paid to our lawyers.
The Funding Deed was subsequently described by Richard Wiseman, as being “bananas”. According to Mr Wiseman, Dr Fay was dead set against the agreement, but his objections were overruled by Group Managing Directors of the Royal Dutch Shell Group.
Documentary evidence is now published in association with each of the following subjects (except for the last subject) involving the same Shell management tactics of cover-up and deceit:
SHELL UNCOVER ACTIVITY/WITNESS INTIMIDATION RELATING TO THE SHELL SMART LITIGATION
FRAUDULENT PRACTICES AT SHELL CONDONED BY SENIOR MANAGEMENT
THE SHELL CORPORATE CONSCIENCE PRESSURE GROUP (SHELL ETHICAL SURVEY RESULTS ADDED 19/08/04)
THE COVER-UP STRATEGY AND THREATS CONTINUE TO THIS DAY
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