Corporate & Securities Law

Shell adds US to reserves settlement

By Werner R. Kranenburg

In the continuing saga that is the Shell Settlement (see the WV&Z archive for previous posts), the latest development came last week with the company’s settlement with US investors. (Royal Dutch Shell Plc: Euronext, LSE, NYSE: RDSA, RDSB; Shell press release, The 10b-5 Daily)

The US settlement covers all purchasers of Shell shares on US markets during the Class Period and US residents, citizens and entities who purchased Shell shares on non-US markets during that period. The settlement amount is US$79.9 million plus US$2.95 million, plus interest, plus an additional US$35 million split between the US settlors and non-US settlors. (What isn’t in the press release is the exact amount Shell pays in fees to Lead Counsel Bernstein Liebhard & Lifshitz LLP: US$27 million (Court memo).) The non-US settlement is pending before the Amsterdam Court of Appeals.

Taking a step back however, behind the settlement news was the required preceding development of having to rid the US action of the non-US claimants, which had already established their own settlement last year, in order for the Stateside plaintiffs to be able to enter into their own settlement without them. That occured by way of final order of the New Jersey District Court on 5 December 2007, dismissing the claims of non-US investors from the action with prejudice for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.

Full post as published by With Vigour and Zeal on March 12, 2008 (boomark / email).