In 2011 an Ecuadorean court had ordered it to pay $19 billion—reduced on appeal to $9.5 billion—for environmental damage in the Amazon.
"There's a huge potential for environmental damage," he said.
Russia's shoddy janitorial work has angered Kazakh officials, who have peppered Moscow with compensation requests for environmental damage.
Company officials say they do not fear the suit and deny any significant responsibility for environmental damage.
But they conceded the report would probably carry greater weight in guiding future efforts to account for environmental damage.
Some scientists say it will be difficult to prove that fish farms are totally at fault for environmental damage.
The legal action, represents the first time Shell or any oil company has faced claims in the UK from a community from the developing world for environmental damage.
It said the real test of the government's will would come when it came to assessing civil penalties on BP for environmental damage.
"ExxonMobil had an egregious record for environmental damage and human-rights violations around the world," Carol Foyler, a school counsellor in Santa Rosa, California, said.
The government also threatened fines for environmental damage, recalling a tactic Russia used to pressure Royal Dutch Shell to renegotiate an oil and gas project in Siberia.
Greenpeace, the environmental advocacy group, said it was worried about the potential for environmental damage and would be monitoring cleanup efforts.
