John Donovan, Shell's Nightmare

About: John Donovan, Shell’s nightmare


His ebook tells the truly extraordinary story of a series of incredible battles in an epic feud between him and the oil giant Royal Dutch Shell.


It all stemmed from the repeated theft of intellectual property by Shell. 


Donovan was chairman of a sales promotion agency, Don Marketing, that devised spectacularly successful forecourt promotions for Shell on an international basis. Many involved budgets of several million dollars. A mutually beneficial relationship lasted for over a decade. 


This was followed by two decades of acrimony involving six High Court actions, a County Court case and proceedings via the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). 


At one stage Shell displayed posters at the Shell Centre in London defaming John Donovan and his father Alfred. The Donovan’s sued Shell for libel. One of two libel actions they brought against Shell. Both were settled out of court, as were all of the other court actions. Shell also lost the case decided by the WIPO.


On a number of occasions Shell resorted to cloak and dagger activity and was cornered into admitting in writing the activities of one undercover agent. This was at a time when the Donovan’s were besieged by sinister activity involving threats against them and when a series of burglaries were carried out at the homes of their main witness, their solicitor and at their own home. 


Unbeknown to the Donovan’s titled Shell directors were the spymasters, directors and major shareholders of a corporate intelligence spy firm which had Shell as a client, and still does. 


For more than a decade, John has operated a Shell focussed non-profit website which operates under the domain name royaldutchshellplc.com which Shell unsuccessfully attempted to seize.


A TV documentary feature about John Donovan and his website, which has cost Shell billions of dollars, as widely reported, has been broadcast in many countries, with a related news article published in ten languages. His activities have been the subject of over 100 news articles by the FT, Wall Street Journal, Reuters etc. and references to his website appear in almost 40 books.