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BP has instructed Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) to defend it against claims the oil major’s security precautions at an Algerian gas plant were flawed at the time of a terrorist attack in 2013 that killed 40 people.

The claims at the English High Court stem from an attack by al-Qaeda-linked militants against the In Amenas gas plant in Algeria operated by BP as part of a joint venture with Norway’s Statoil and Algeria’s Sontrach.

The militants took over 800 hostages during the siege in January 2013 and 40 foreign nationals were killed, six of whom were British. Foreign workers were forced to put explosives around their necks by the terrorists before the Algerian military regained control of the site.

An inquest carried out last year by judge Nicholas Hilliard QC highlighted multiple failures by the plant’s management to upgrade protection – partly on the grounds of cost. Hilliard recorded verdicts of unlawful killing. A French criminal investigation is ongoing and a former BP engineer is suing the oil giant for more than $100m in Texas, claiming that the oil major failed to both provide him with safe transport out of the region and act on specific knowledge of a threat.

In the UK two personal injury law firms, Slater and Gordon and Irwin Mitchell, have issued claims against BP on behalf of survivors and families of the deceased estimated to be worth between £15m and £20m.

Slater and Gordon is acting for 20 survivors and three families of men killed in the attack and claims the ‘energy giant failed to take proper precautions to protect the workers at the plant’.

Slater and Gordon litigation lawyer Alicia Thompson, who is representing the group said: ‘Our clients have been through a tremendous ordeal over the past three years and for them to hear that BP has denied liability was a terrible blow. In light of that decision we felt we had no choice but to issue legal proceedings.’

Hillard’s inquest also flagged that security drills were rarely held, the front gates to the facility were said to have been frequently left open and that there were no armed guards in the foreign workers’ living quarters or in the compound’s 12 watchtowers.

Four HSF partners in Paris and London have been instructed to steer BP through the criminal investigation in France and claims from survivors and victims’ families in the English High Court.

The firm’s disputes relationship partner for BP, Craig Tevendale, is leading on the matter. He is being supported by the firm’s London-based personal injury litigator Howard Watson, HSF’s Paris head of corporate crime and investigations Jonathan Mattout and Paris head of energy and infrastructure Bertrand Montembault.

Irwin Mitchell is representing the families of BP employees Carlos Estrada Valencia and Sebastian John, who were killed during the attack. Clive Garner, head of international travel litigation at Irwin Mitchell, said: ‘As well as seeking justice for our clients, it is crucial that lessons are learned from what occurred at In Amenas. All organisations with employees working abroad must carefully review their operations and ensure that the safety and security of their employees is their number one priority.’

tom.moore@legalease.co.uk

Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) and its client the Royal Bank of Scotland have been criticised for their role in a ‘less than compelling’ and ‘unfocused’ disclosure process in the long running £4bn shareholder dispute against the bank.

In a judgment handed down from the High Court this morning, Mr Justice Hildyard decided ‘with very considerable reluctance’ to an adjournment of the trial until 6 March 2017. RBS and its lawyers HSF had requested the delay, claiming it was impossible to prepare the evidence required.

The shareholder claimants opposed the extension, claiming that the disclosure process had already taken many months and, questioned why there needed to be a re-review of all the disclosed documents without explanation.

In his ruling, Hildyard J described ‘what appears to be an unfocused disclosure process, which has fanned out exponentially and extravagantly without sufficient control and direction… the commitment of increasing resource to the identification of documents, leaving a diminished resource for their assimilation, without properly taking stock as to whether the process had overtaken the purpose.’

One of the most high-profile features of this case has been costs, and Hildyard said while the court does not ‘intend by any means to peer behind the curtain of legal privilege, the lack of clear evidence is all the more worrying given the apparently small percentage of their allotted budget for witness statements the defendants’ legal team have so far spent on this process.’

Hildyard J said some of the evidence provided by the defence has been both ‘unsettling’ and ‘less than compelling’, and cited a description provided of the pleaded issues as ‘incredibly broad and complicated’.

In accepting the need to move the trial date, Hildyard J observed that a submission made by the claimants ‘to the effect that the defendants must re-think their approach and strategy and must be able to achieve better progress in the future carries force’.

Last month several Lloyds Banking Group institutional clients broke away from the shareholder action group and instructed Mishcon de Reya instead of Signature Litigation. The action is brought against the bank’s former chief executive Fred Goodwin and three other directors, and relates to a rights issue in April 2008, in which RBS sold its shares at £2 per share. The claimants allege that the prospectus on which the rights issue was based was ‘defective’ and contained material misstatements and omissions.

The RBS Shareholder Action group is the largest of three currently in dispute with RBS, with the others represented by Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan and Stewarts Law.

HSF continues to defend RBS in both cases, with a team lead by partners Adam Johnson, Simon Clarke, Kirsten Massey and James Norris-Jones.

HSF declined to comment.

sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk