Remember Royal Dutch/Shell’s Enronesque experience relating to overstatement of reserves from last year?
Well, the British equivalent of the SEC — the Financial Services Authority, or FSA — announced yesterday that it had concluded its investigation of former senior Shell executives Philip Watts and Walter van de Vijver and found no wrongdoing relating to the executives’ involvement in the company’s overstatement of energy reserves last year. The SEC and the Justice Department are still conducting investigations of the two former executives.
Funny how the FSA’s announcement of yesterday did not get quite as much play in the media as the ouster of the two executives from Shell last year as the company’s overstatement came to light.
Houston's Clear Thinkers
Longtime Houston attorney Tom Kirkendall's observations on developments in law, business, medicine, culture, sports, and other matters of general interest to the Houston business, professional, and academic communities.
The senior executives are paid very well for their responsibilities. Those responsibilities include being sure that things are done right the first time. When they fail in those responsibilities, they must be held accountable, and rightly so. To find them legally right ignores the fact that they did an unacceptable job for what they were highly paid to do.
Signed,
40 year Shell retiree
David, I don’t think the fact that the FSA found insufficient grounds for taking regulatory action against the executives means that they have not been held accountable for Shell’s reserve problems. They both lost their jobs and are defendants in civil litigation over the reserve matter. Thus, they have and will continue to pay dearly for the problems that Shell experienced during their watch, except that their responsibility will be evaluated where it is best sorted out — in a civil context rather than a regulatory or criminal one.