Alame and others v Shell Plc and another
| Court | High Court of Justice, King's Bench Division |
| Judge | Mrs Justice Lambert DBE, managing judge of the group litigation since November 2025 |
| Hearing | 14, 15 and 29 July 2026 |
| Judgment | 10 September 2026 |
| Claimants | Individuals and community representatives from the Bille and Ogale areas of the Niger Delta. This decision concerns the Bille community and individual claims only |
| Defendants | Shell Plc, formerly Royal Dutch Shell Plc, and Renaissance Africa Energy Company Limited, formerly The Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Ltd |
| Case references | KB-2023-000252, KB-2022-005017, KB-2023-002200, KB-2023-002201, KB-2023-000437 |
| Matter | Whether a pleaded case that systemic failures caused all oil spills in an area, with causation left to inference, was a material departure requiring permission to amend, and whether such permission should be refused as too late or as unfair |
| Outcome | Permission not required. Had it been required it would have been granted. No strike out. The aggravated damages amendment allowed, with the evidence to be heard at the liability trial |
Summary
Crude oil escaped from pipelines, wellheads and associated infrastructure operated by the defendants in the Niger Delta between 2011 and 2013. Water sources were contaminated and mangrove forest destroyed. Proceedings were issued between June 2015 and January 2017 for individuals and communities in the Bille and Ogale areas.
The claimants now say the defendants' systemic failures caused all the spills in the area. Their secondary case is confined to 106 spills set out in an annex. The defendants did not object to that. They objected to the wider case because the spills behind it are not identified, and said it needed permission which should be refused. Mrs Justice Lambert held that no permission was needed.
Background and facts
The label global claim entered this litigation in April 2022, when O'Farrell J observed that the pleadings represented a global claim: no causal connection had been pleaded between individual spillages and the damage suffered by individual claimants. Such a claim was permissible but inherently risky, because it depends on establishing the matters complained of in their entirety. In November 2023 May J found the causation pleading deficient and case managed the claims as global claims unless a more particular case was identified. The Court of Appeal allowed the claimants' appeal in December 2024: that regime could not be imposed on parties who had disavowed it.
May J then ordered disclosure, and directed full particulars of causation once the claimants had it. The pleading that followed runs to over 400 pages and 426 paragraphs. Liability is alleged under the Oil Pipelines Act 1990, under section 37 of the First Schedule of the Petroleum Act 1969, and in negligence, nuisance and under the rule in Rylands v Fletcher. The breaches pleaded are systemic. The annex carries 106 spills: 60 the defendants had recorded, and 46 the claimants found for themselves.
The issue
Whether the amendment introducing the all spills case was a material departure from the claim already advanced, so that permission was needed; if so, whether it should be refused as too late or unfair; and whether the aggravated damages claim should be heard at the liability trial or held over to quantum.
The decision
Both sides took the judge to statements made by counsel between 2021 and 2023 and to the Court of Appeal. She held that statements in court vary in emphasis with their context, and that what was said in July 2023 captured the case now pleaded. Males LJ had recorded that the claimants relied on all spills in the period even where they could not identify a particular one. The order of May J had required full particularity, and it had been given.
But they know the case which they have to meet and, as they have accepted, it is not legally bad or unsound. It is a claim based on inference but that does not make it unlawful.Mrs Justice Lambert, paragraph 36
Permission was therefore not needed. The judge went on to hold, in the alternative, that she would have granted permission had it been required. Lateness failed because the trial date was not at risk. The global claim argument failed for a different reason: what makes a claim global is that it stands or falls as a whole, and these claims do not, since failure on spills caused by third party bunkering would not defeat claims founded on a failure to maintain pipelines. Whether global claims exist in environmental tort or in Nigerian law remains undecided.
The primary case advanced by the Claimants is not unclear or imprecise. It starts with specific damage in a particular location and, to the extent that this damage cannot be attributed to a specific spill, relies on an inference that it must have been caused by an unidentified spill for which the Defendants are responsible. Whether such an inference can properly be drawn will depend on the evidence.Mrs Justice Lambert, paragraph 46
The complaint that the defendants had no target failed because damage, not spills, is to be proved directly by evidence in sample areas. Limitation, and the different regimes attaching to pipelines and to other infrastructure, were left as fact sensitive matters to be weighed after a liability trial covering the 106 known spills as samples.
It may be difficult for the Claimants to prove that an identifiable and cognisable portion of the damage was attributable to the increase in frequency or duration or volume of a spill but that is a question for trial and not a reason to prevent the case being litigated.Mrs Justice Lambert, paragraph 52
The strike out application was not developed and no authority was cited for it. On aggravated damages the defendants objected only to timing. The judge gave permission now and directed that the evidence be heard during the liability trial, because deferral risked delaying the quantum trial by six to eight months and would mean recalling witnesses.
Practical implications
Global claim is used loosely in construction disputes, and this judgment draws a line round it. What makes a claim global is that it stands or falls as a whole. Breadth of inference is a different thing. Plead prolongation and disruption so that a failure on one limb does not take the rest with it.
Inference is a conventional route to causation, not an admission of weakness. What this decision does not do is guarantee the inference. The burden stays with the claimant, and a mixed evidential picture makes it harder to draw.
Practice points
- A claim is not a global claim merely because it is broad. The test is whether it stands or falls as a whole. Plead breach, damage and causation so that failure on one limb does not take the rest with it.
- Prove damage directly wherever the records allow. Damage established by location and extent gives the other side something to answer and keeps the inferential step as narrow as possible.
- Decide first whether an amendment is a material departure from the case already advanced. If it is not, no permission is needed at all, and the objecting party carries the argument.
- Say what your case is, early and consistently. Both sides here mined transcripts going back to 2021 to argue about what had been promised. The judge held that statements in court vary in emphasis with their context, so a single line in a transcript will rarely fix an opponent's case.
- Lateness bites hardest when the trial date is at risk. Here it was not, and the court found no delay and no threat to the liability trial listed for 4 May 2027.
- Where an amendment alleges iniquity, expect a fight about privilege before disclosure is given. That prospect did not persuade the court to defer the issue. It gave permission now so the evidence is heard once.