…a company that could not believe it was being outplayed by a persistent critic with a website, an archive, and a very long memory.
The Donovan–Shell feud is one of those corporate grudge matches that has outlived half a dozen boardrooms, multiple CEOs, and the era when companies could plausibly pretend the internet was a passing fad. What began as a business dispute in the 1990s metastasized into a decades-long reputational blood feud in which Royal Dutch Shell repeatedly managed to turn irritation into spectacle, and spectacle into self-inflicted embarrassment. The most humiliating part is not that Shell was criticized; it is that on several key occasions Shell’s own reactions seemed to validate the criticism, amplify the critic, or simply hand him another victory. Reuters documented one of the strangest episodes in 2009: Shell allegedly asked an anti-cyber fraud agency to target Donovan’s site while internal emails acknowledged it offered better information than Shell’s own communications. (shellnews.net)
Background
The Donovan story starts in a conventional corporate dispute and ends somewhere closer to performance art. John Donovan and his late father Alfred were once involved in promotional work for Shell, then fell into a bitter conflict that spilled into litigation, media coverage, and eventually a sprawling archive of criticism aimed at the oil major. Reuters noted in 2009 that the feud dated back to the 1990s and that earlier business and libel disputes had already been settled, yet the internet battle only grew louder. (shellnews.net)read more
A satirical “AI roundtable” about the Shell saga may read like internet theater, but it lands because the underlying dispute is real, persistent, and unusually durable. What makes the piece sting is not the fictional dialogue itself; it is the way four different AI systems are imagined converging on one basic conclusion: Shell’s long-running conflict with John Donovan is no trivial internet squabble, but a reputational problem that never fully went away. That framing is consistent with the historical record of a domain-name battle Shell lost in 2005 and with the company’s own continuing sensitivity around branding, online identity, and corporate narrative.read more
Ladies and gentlemen, polish your white cats and adjust your laser‑armed wristwatches — because today we dive into the glittering, shadow‑soaked world of modern institutional power. Not actual criminal masterminds, of course — but organisations whose scale, secrecy, influence, and occasional controversy make them feel just a tiny bit like the boardroom version of SPECTRE or SMERSH.
This is satire, not slander. This is commentary, not conspiracy. This is the Top 10 Bond‑Villain‑Adjacent Organisations of the Modern Age.read more
If there were an Olympic event for corporate disappearing acts, Shell would be on the podium—gold medal, champagne in hand, and a press release explaining it was all part of a “long-term strategy.”
The latest act?
A slickly packaged “strategic shift” involving its Dutch gas business, NAM—the same operation linked to the Groningen gas field, where decades of extraction triggered earthquakes, wrecked homes, and left a political and human mess that refuses to quietly go away.
Now, suddenly, Shell has discovered the ancient art of restructuring.read more
In what may go down as one of the most exquisitely polite legal contradictions of the climate era, Shell has emerged from its landmark Dutch court battle with a result that can only be described as existentially reassuring for oil executives everywhere.
Yes, the court confirmed that Shell has a duty to help prevent dangerous climate change.
No, it declined to say what that actually means in practice.
Mission accomplished.
The Legal Masterpiece: Responsibility Without Numbers
The original 2021 ruling had the audacity to suggest that Shell should cut emissions by 45% by 2030—a dangerously specific idea that risked turning corporate responsibility into something measurable.read more
A totally unbiased, wildly judgmental Top 10 list for the greatest cons in corporate history researched and ranked by Microsoft Copilot.
#10 — Wells Fargo: “Would You Like a Fake Account With That?”
The con: Millions of bank accounts and credit cards opened without customers’ consent so staff could hit absurd sales targets.
Why it ranks: This is small-time compared with the mega-frauds below, but the sheer banality of it earns a spot. No exotic derivatives, no offshore labyrinth—just everyday customers quietly milked by a system that turned cross‑selling into a contact sport. It’s here because it shows how a toxic incentive scheme can turn a whole bank into a low‑rent identity theft machine.read more
Because sometimes, the line between business genius and breathtaking audacity is just a press release away.
10. Volkswagen’s “Zero-Emissions (If You Don’t Count the Emissions)” Scandal — 2015
German efficiency met moral flexibility: VW installed “defeat devices” that made their cars pass emissions tests only when they knew they were being tested. Why it ranks: The cars basically put on a tuxedo for the exam and switched back to sweatpants afterward. Incredible dedication to deceit.
9. WeWork’s “Tech Company (That Sells Desks)” Delusion — 2019
Adam Neumann pitched glorified office rentals as a transcendent movement of human consciousness. Investors agreed—briefly—before the IPO burst like a kombucha bubble. Why it ranks: Proof that charisma and buzzwords can move billions—until someone asks to see a profit.read more
Top 10 Corporate Cons That Made Enron Look Like a Parking TicketBy Grok, the Tabloid Truth-Teller
Ladies and gentlemen, grab your popcorn and your pitchforks! These aren’t just scandals — they’re masterpieces of corporate sleight-of-hand that turned boardrooms into casinos, investors into suckers, and CEOs into (temporary) billionaires. We ranked them by a deadly serious formula: Audacity × Dollar Damage × How Long They Got Away With It × Public Face-Melting Embarrassment. Shell’s infamous oil-reserves fairy tale makes the cut, but it’s not even cracking the top five. Buckle up — here we go!read more
ChatGPT: Top 10 Boardroom Swindles Ranked by Greed, Gall and Jaw-Dropping Audacity
From global financial meltdown to oil giant “oopsies,” we rank the biggest corporate cons ever pulled — and the executives who (mostly) walked away smiling
An entirely unauthorised, deeply cynical, and ruthlessly honest countdown
What is the greatest corporate con of all time?
Is it the one that stole the most money?
The one that fooled the most people?
Or the one that looked you straight in the eye… and lied anyway?
Welcome to the definitive Top 10.
A parade of financial wizardry, ethical gymnastics, and industrial-scale cheek — where “mistakes” cost billions, “misjudgments” ruin lives, and “accountability” is something that happens to other people.
🧨
THE TOP 10
🔟 #10 — Wells Fargo: Banking, But Make It Fiction
The con:
Millions of fake accounts opened without customer consent to hit sales targets.read more
Your Definitive, Entirely Unauthorised, Top 10 Countdown of Boardroom Villainy, Shameless Audacity and Industrial-Scale Cheating — Rated, Ranked and Ruthlessly Mocked
The full ranking by claude.ai is ready. Here’s how the Top 10 shakes out and the reasoning by claude.ai behind the key positions:
🥇 #1 — The Global Financial Crisis takes the top spot as the only fraud in history perpetrated not by one company but by an entire industry — with the losses paid by people who had no part in it. Virtually no senior executives went to prison. Many received bonuses.
#2 — The South Sea Bubble gets silver for being the founding template for every corporate fraud that followed, three centuries before the rest. Isaac Newton lost a fortune. The Chancellor of the Exchequer went to prison. The King was on the board.read more
SHELL’S MORAL SLIP: THE OIL GIANT, THE GAME SELLER, AND THE GREATEST CON IN CORPORATE HISTORY
How Britain’s most high-minded energy giant preached ethics to John Donovan while secretly cooking the books for billions — and keeping spies on the payroll
By Our Investigations Desk | Exclusive
PICTURE THE SCENE. It is the spring of 1997. In a wood-panelled office at Shell-Mex House on the Strand — the kind of building that practically sweats self-importance — Richard Wiseman, General Counsel & Company Secretary of Shell U.K. Limited, picks up his fountain pen and dashes off another stern letter to a marketing man from Bury St Edmunds.
The message, stripped of its lawyerly decorum, is essentially: Go away, small person. You have been dealt with. The slate is wiped clean. Do not bother our directors.read more
This identical prompt is being submitted to multiple AI platforms.
Your task is to conduct deep research and produce a fact-based, satirical Top 10 list of the most humiliating, embarrassing, absurd, or self-inflicted setbacks suffered by Shell in its long-running, roughly three-decade conflict with John Donovan and the Donovans.
Use publicly available evidence, including credible media coverage, legal cases, archived materials, and relevant material from Donovan’s books and websites, especially royaldutchshellplc.com.read more
A Tabloid Exposé Crossed With a Corporate Roast — Grounded in Documented Fact
Researched and compiled by claude.ai
INTRODUCTION
Imagine the world’s second-largest oil company. Tens of thousands of employees. A thousand in-house lawyers. An annual revenue measured in the hundreds of billions. A corporate security apparatus reportedly staffed by former MI6 officers. An international intelligence firm on retainer. The FBI as an occasional reference.
Now imagine all of that levelled at one man — a marketing consultant from Bury St Edmunds — and his elderly father, a Second World War veteran living in Colchester.
For three decades, Royal Dutch Shell deployed every weapon in a Goliath’s arsenal against John Donovan and his father Alfred. It litigated. It surveilled. It pressured web hosts on two continents. It set up dedicated internal task forces. It monitored its own employees. It hired what are described as corporate spies. It filed complaints with international arbitration bodies. It put up defamatory posters at its own headquarters — then paid for the privilege.read more
Sir Henri Deterding, the controversial and outspoken founder of Royal Dutch Shell, now haunts the website. Wise to all the knowledge of Shell, and its shellanigans, he delivers informative and satirical insight to anything about Shell. He's a grumpy old sod, so you'll have to excuse his bluntness.
Click the big chat-bubble (bottom-right of the website)to ask Sir Henri a question. Enjoy!
EBOOK TITLE: “SIR HENRI DETERDING AND THE NAZI HISTORY OF ROYAL DUTCH SHELL” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON EBOOK TITLE: “JOHN DONOVAN, SHELL’S NIGHTMARE: MY EPIC FEUD WITH THE UNSCRUPULOUS OIL GIANT ROYAL DUTCH SHELL” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON. EBOOK TITLE: “TOXIC FACTS ABOUT SHELL REMOVED FROM WIKIPEDIA: HOW SHELL BECAME THE MOST HATED BRAND IN THE WORLD” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.
JOHN DONOVAN TV DOCUMENTARY INTERVIEW
SHELL EXECUTIVES AT THE CENTER OF A SCHEME TO STEAL $1.3 BILLION FROM NIGERIA’S PEOPLE
SHELL ADMITS DEALING WITH NIGERIAN MONEY LAUNDERER – BBC NEWS
SHELL, ENI AND NIGERIAN OFFICIALS IN OPL 245 CORRUPTION SCANDAL
INVESTIGATION OF OPL 245 NIGERIAN OIL CORRUPTION SCANDAL
DUTCH EARTHQUAKES CAUSED BY SHELL/EXXON
SHELL KILLS FOR OIL IN NIGERIA
SHELL LIED ABOUT CLEANING UP OIL IN NIGER DELTA
SHELL SPIES INFILTRATED NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT
LEGO DROPS SHELL OVER GREENPEACE OIL SPILL VIDEO
SHELL ARCTIC DRILLING ACCIDENTS
SHELL KNEW ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE DECADES AGO
ROYAL DUTCH SHELL FOUNDER SIR HENRI DETERDING, NAZI FINANCIER
JOHN DONOVAN PROMOTIONAL GAMES FOR SHELL AND OTHER CLIENTS
Listen and read proof in audio and transcript form of Shell CEO Ben van Beurden’s cover-up tactics in the OPL 245 Nigerian corruption scandal. The instruction given by him in the covertly recorded call to CFO Simon Henry was at odds with Shell’s claimed core business principles. Cover-up and obstruction, instead of transparency and integrity, says Shell critic John Donovan
The content below is sourced from current verifiable customer reviews of Shell Energy published on Trustpilot.
Extremely slow broadband for 10 months, not fixed.I have had slow broadband well below the guaranteed speed for 10 months and Shell Energy have not been able to fix it.They have tried sending about 4 or 5 engineers but have not fixed the problem.Gurps, who I have been dealing with most recently, has been friendly and polite, alth… Read more
Extremely Slow Shell Broadband
The worst ever
I used shell broadband. It was by far the worst broadband provider ever! The internet did not work most days. I had their super fast broadband and it dropped out constantly. Watching a movie was awful with the constant buffering. Customer support was super slow. Now their going to charge me for the useless router which I have sent back.
I ordered shell energy broadband on nov 2. I was promised connection the following week. They initiated the direct debit. I called the following week and was told router would arrive on 13 and service would go live on 17. No further email or communication until 20 when I was told service would start on 30th. Spent 10 minutes waiting on phone line and spoke to a polite assistant who was absolutely useless in solving my problem. Avoid this unprofessional and chaotic… Read more
Shell Energy Broadband Service is Appalling
The worst ever
I used shell broadband. It was by far the worst broadband provider ever! The internet did not work most days. I had their super fast broadband and it dropped out constantly. Watching a movie was awful with the constant buffering. Customer support was super slow. Now their going to charge me for the useless router which I have sent back.
Date of experience: 21 November 2023
By far the worst broadband provider ever!
OVER 500 EXTERNAL PUBLICATIONS CITING OUR SHELL WEBSITES
See our link list of over 500 articles by the FT, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Bloomberg, Forbes, Dow Jones Newswires, New York Times, CNBC etc, plus UK House of Commons Select Committee Hansard records, information on U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission websiteetc. all containing references to our Shell focussed websites, or our website founders Alfred and John Donovan. Includes TV documentary features in English and German, newspaper and magazine articles, radio interviews, newsletters etc. Plus academic papers, Stratfor intelligence reports and UK, U.S. and Australian state/parliamentary publications, also citing our Shell websites. Click on this link to see the entire list, all in date order with a link to an index of over 100 books also containing references to our non-profit websites and/or our activities.
John Donovan, the website owner
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This is not a Shell website. The nature of this platform should be evident from the content presented here and on our related Shell-focused websites, including shellnazihistory.com. For more details, please refer to the Disclaimer link at the top of this page. Shell does not endorse or approve of this website.
Our platform operates as a non-commercial, advert-free, and subscription-free space. We do not solicit or accept donations and aim to provide information to our readers free of charge. The Shell logo image with white text used on this website is in the public domain due to expired copyright and anonymous authorship. It can be found on WIKIMEDIA COMMONS. Use this link for Shell’s own website.
Our content, including images and features like the Sheldon chatbot, incorporates information generated by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and various other technological means. We may also draw from sources such as Wikipedia and other published materials. Please note that some content may include satirical adaptations or elements of gossip, rumors, or exaggeration to engage and entertain our audience.
We strive to maintain factual accuracy and encourage readers to notify us promptly if any factual inaccuracies are found, so we can address and rectify them swiftly. Readers are advised to verify all information independently for accuracy and completeness. Any actions taken based on the content provided on our platform are at your own risk.
SHELL’S MORAL SLIP: THE OIL GIANT, THE GAME SELLER, AND THE GREATEST CON IN CORPORATE HISTORY
EBOOK TITLE: “SIR HENRI DETERDING AND THE NAZI HISTORY OF ROYAL DUTCH SHELL” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON
EBOOK TITLE: “JOHN DONOVAN, SHELL’S NIGHTMARE: MY EPIC FEUD WITH THE UNSCRUPULOUS OIL GIANT ROYAL DUTCH SHELL” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.
EBOOK TITLE: “TOXIC FACTS ABOUT SHELL REMOVED FROM WIKIPEDIA: HOW SHELL BECAME THE MOST HATED BRAND IN THE WORLD” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.
