The next scandal?

摘要

"There is something strange going on in this industry," says Jeroen van der Veer, the boss of Royal Dutch/Shell. He suspects that his firm, far from being the nasty exception it has been portrayed as being, is merely the first to face a problem that is industry-wide. Mr van der Veer got the top job at Shell after a scandal involving overbooking of "proved" oil reserves that brought down his predecessor, Sir Philip Watts, and also prompted the firm to abandon its arcane bi-national dual-board structure. Industry analysts and investors are quietly saying that Mr van der Veer may be right, and that another big reserves scandal may be brewing somewhere.