© PIUS UTOMI EKPEI, AFP/File
Shell Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC) claims the main sources of pollution in Nigeria's Ogale and Bille communities are oil theft, pipeline sabotage and illegal refining.
Members of the Ogale and Bille communities had applied for the case to be heard in Britain, arguing they could not get justice in Nigeria. But the High Court in London said it did not have jurisdiction in the case.
"Our community is disappointed but not discouraged by this judgement," King Emere Godwin Bebe Okpabi, ruler of the Ogale Community, said in a statement.
"This decision has to be appealed, not just for Ogale but for many other people in the Niger Delta who will be shut out if this decision is allowed to stand.
"Shell is simply being asked to clean up its oil and to compensate the communities it has devastated," he said.
The firm's lawyer Peter Goldsmith told judge Peter Fraser during a hearing in November that the cases concerned "fundamentally Nigerian issues", and should not be heard in London. However, Daniel Leader from legal firm Leigh Day, representing the claimants, responded that the spills had "blighted the lives of the thousands".
He said they had "no choice" other than to seek legal redress in London. Goldsmith also argued that the case involves Shell's Nigerian subsidiary SPDC, which runs a joint venture with the Nigerian government.
He claimed that the case was aimed at establishing the High Court's jurisdiction over SPDC, opening the door for further claims.
Comment: More on the doping scandal: