Royal Dutch Shell

A nearly 14-year legal battle between Shell Oil and the families of executed protesters from the Ogoni region of the Niger Delta ended Monday with an out-of-court settlement of $15.5 million, just as the case was scheduled to be heard in U.S. District Court.

The lawsuits revolved around the 1995 hanging of nine environmental activists, including the Ogoni leader of the campaign, Ken Saro-Wiwa, a Nigerian author and television producer who was honored that year with the Goldman Environmental Prize.

Through the early 1990s, Saro-Wiwa and The Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People used massive mobilizations, some as large as 300,000 people, to disrupt drilling operations in the Niger Delta.

They accused oil companies and the Nigerian government of degrading Ogoni tribal lands and waterways, leaving oil spilled uncleaned, and exploiting the indigenous people and their resources. At one point, the group demanded $10 billion in oil royalties and compensation for the environmental damage.

Then, in 1994, Saro-Wiwa and nine other leaders of the movement were arrested. Accused of inciting murder in the deaths of four Ogoni, they were dragged before a military tribunal and hanged.