Team size: 954

What are the most significant cases or transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

The first is the Milieudefensie climate change case where Shell was required by the court to reduce our scope one and two emissions globally by 45% relative to 2019 and use significant best efforts to reduce our scope three emissions globally by the same amount. The second is our trial in Milan where Shell, our partner ENI, and several other defendants are accused of bribery and corruption in securing the rights to an offshore oil license in Nigeria in 2011. This was billed as a case of the “largest bribe ever paid”. In March we were acquitted in full by the lower courts and the public prosecutor appealed to the Court of Appeal. A case involving two intermediaries in the same transaction was dismissed by the Court of Appeal in the summer. Finally, we have appealed a judgement from the Dutch courts ruling that foreign in-house counsel located in the Netherlands do not have in-house legal privilege per se.

In terms of transactions, we recently sold our Shales business to ConocoPhillips for $9.5bn. We are also investing multi-billion dollars in energy transition projects such as wind and solar, biofuels, hydrogen, EV charging, carbon capture and sequestration and nature-based solutions.

How do you feel the pandemic has changed the world of work for in-house counsel?

The pandemic has had a huge toll on economies around the world, and posed increased volatility and risks, for example negative oil prices inApril 2020. It coincided with several other significant events such as the global diversity, equality and inclusion awakening moment with the murder of George Floyd, and greater awareness around climate change. There is a strong drive by governments around the world to build back better with a greater focus on ESG and this has resulted in a change in the nature of the work for in-house teams and general counsel. We are now much more externally facing and reputationally focused in dealing with governments, NGOs, activists, and other companies beyond just pure business. We are working more in coalitions to build back better, and quite a few teams are reorganising to meet the demands on ESG work.

What will be the main focus for the company in the next 12 months and how do you intend to assist with this?

Over the last ten months, we have announced a new strategy, carried out the largest global reorganisation we have ever done, and recently announced that we will be simplifying our corporate structure by collapsing our two lines of shares into one and moving our Headquarters from the Netherlands to the UK. The next 12 months will therefore be about implementing the strategy, stabilising the new organisation, and completing the change in corporate structure.