Shell
Admits It Misled Investors
By Terry Macalister
20 April, 2004
The Guardian
Shell
deliberately misled investors about the financial health of the world's
third largest oil company, an internal inquiry revealed yesterday.
The Anglo-Dutch oil company sacked its chairman Sir Philip Watts and
his exploration director Walter van de Vijver earlier this year after
admitting it had overstated the amount of oil and gas reserves it had
in the ground by more than 20%.
Yesterday it said
the figure was nearer 25% and admitted Sir Philip and Mr Van de Vijver
had known about the problems for at least two years and possibly for
as long as seven.
Extraordinary messages
between senior directors, revealed yesterday, must increase the likelihood
of them facing criminal charges from the US justice department which
is investigating events.
The most damning
statement comes in an email from Mr Van de Vijver to Sir Philip dated
November 9 2003, which says: "I am becoming sick and tired about
lying about the extent of our reserves issues and the downward revisions
that need to be done because of far too aggressive/optimistic bookings."
The firm, which
controls over 1,000 petrol stations in Britain, also said finance chief
Judy Boynton has been forced to leave her post.
Financial analysts
use the reserves figure for valuing oil companies and yet the Shell
figures were put together by one part-time staff member, it admitted
yesterday in the findings of a report commissioned by Shell's audit
committee.
The two top Shell
executives had been insisting publicly as recently as early this year
that difficulties with reserves only came to light late in 2003.
But as long ago
as February 11 2002, Mr Van de Vijver forwarded a note to other senior
executives warning the company's figures were 2.3bn barrels of oil higher
than they should have been to meet the rules of the Wall Street regulator,
the securities and exchange commission.
"Recently the
SEC issued clarifications that makes it apparent that the group guidelines
are no longer fully aligned with SEC rules," argued Mr Van de Vijver
in the note published yesterday.
And yet on May 28
2002, Sir Philip appears to completely dismiss this warning when he
tells Mr Van de Vijver to leave "no stone unturned" to ensure
even higher oil and gas figures are reported publicly.
Lord Oxburgh, joint
chairman of the Anglo-Dutch group, said the latest findings contained
in a review by US lawyers Davis Polk & Wardwell had revealed "disturbing
deficiencies" inside one of Britain's most prestigious companies.
He insisted he had
been kept in the dark about the serious discrepancies between what was
being said publicly rather than privately by the firm.
Lord Oxburgh promised
a huge shake-up in the way Shell was run, saying new systems had already
been put in place which he insisted "deals with our past mistakes
and sets a new standard for the future".
Sir Philip's replacement,
Jeroen van der Veer, rejected suggestions that the problems resembled
the high profile scandals that had destroyed American companies such
as Enron. "This is not a major financial scandal," he insisted.
But business experts said the crisis at Shell was the biggest since
the Guinness affair in the 1980s and involved a company that was previously
considered one of Britain's most conservative and reliable firms.