A class action suit by two Niger Delta activists failed at a London court on Wednesday, allowing Shell Nigeria to escape liability for a 2011 massive oil spillage.

Five UK Supreme Court justices ruled that the duo instituted the case outside the six-year window allowed by law.

The activists represented 27,800 individuals and 457 communities that jointly sued Shell for the oil slick that devastated the area.

The incident occurred when Shell spilled an estimated 40,000 barrels of crude oil it was attempting to load in tankers. The tankers were loading at the company’s Bonga oil field, 120 kilometers from the Niger Delta coast.

Leaders of the class action subsequently initiated several law suits in London trying to force Shell to pay for damages.

Among their claims were that the slick polluted waterways and damaged farming, fishing, drinking water, mangrove forests, and religious shrines.

The Supreme Court ruling affirmed similar decisions by two lower courts that they filed their case outside the mandatory six-year deadline.

Beyond facts canvassed by the parties, the justices focused only on timing and whether the damage is an ongoing nuisance.

Significantly, Reuters reports that the judges rejected the two activists’ claim that the resulting oil pollution is a “continuing nuisance.”  

This claim, if accepted, would have made the lawsuit a civil action not bound by a legal deadline.

Justice Andrew Burrows who delivered the lead judgement on behalf of the justices however rejected the claim. “There was no continuing nuisance in this case,” he said.

Shell told Reuters that the ruling ends all legal claims in English courts regarding the oil spill.

“While the 2011 Bonga spill was highly regrettable, it was swiftly contained and cleaned up offshore,” a Shell spokesperson told Reuters.

In 2015, Shell paid £55 million (N3.2B) to the Bodo community in Rivers State as compensation for two oil spills after a protracted case. It is equally battling to extricate itself from another oil spill damage case at a London High Court brought by 42,500 farmers and fishermen from Ogale and Bille communities of Rivers State.

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