This is a problem to be assigned to a group to resolve and report back. Imagine that you are now in the Office of the General Counsel of the oil multinational Royal Dutch Shell headquartered in the Netherlands, with significant administrative and financial operations in the UK, plus assets and operations in 20+ countries. Your problems arise out of difficulties in Shell’s longer-term operations in the Niger River Delta in Nigeria (Ogoniland). You have faced several waves of litigation in different countries, and at least one of your cases helped “make law” in the recent narrowing of the scope of the ATCA at the US Supreme Court level. With the benefit of hindsight, which fora were better or worse for defending the local litigation, and why? Your task, as delivered to you as junior lawyer, is to write for the general counsel an “after action report” evaluation of the differing court cases over time, and whether disputes would have better been pursued in one forum or another.

Did the General Counsel’s Office do an effective job managing legal risk at all levels in all cases in all countries, or what might have been done better? How do you effectively manage multinational litigation over time, particularly once you realize that your developing country operations may generate it repeatedly?  (In that sense, litigation is not a one-time occurrence from the MNC perspective). Why is that, and what can be done about it?  What is the cross-over between the litigation and the company’s ESG profile generally?

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