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Philip Brewer files for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy in California

US Bankruptcy Court, Central District of California: Notice of Chapter 7 Bankruptcy Case, Meeting of Creditors, & Deadlines

US Bankruptcy Court, Central District of California: Notice of Chapter 7 Bankruptcy Case, Meeting of Creditors, & Deadlines

PHILIP BREWER has filed for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy in California, Case No. 9:11-bk-14384-PC.

The Bankruptcy Notice states that a Meeting of Creditors is scheduled to take place at 10am, Oct 17, 2011, at 128 East Carillo St, Santa Barbara, CA 93101.

The deadline given for filing objections to Debtor’s Discharge or to Challenge Dischargeability of Certain Debts is Dec 16, 2011; and the deadline to Object to Exemptions is thirty days after the conclusion of the meeting of creditors.

Reverse of Notice: Explanations

Reverse of Notice: Explanations

The reverse of the notice provides important explanations including advice to creditors with foreign (ie non-USA) addresses, who should consult a lawyer familiar with United States bankruptcy law if they have any queries about their rights in this case. It also gives other important information about certain actions that creditors are prohibited from taking, such as contacting the debtor to demand payment or taking action to collect money/obtain property.

Disclaimer: This post is for information only and does not constitute any form of legal advice.

2010: SPCK/SSG Blog Overview

Phil Groom writes:

THANK YOU to the stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com for the following snapshot summary of how this blog did in 2010; but EVEN BIGGER THANKS to you, its readers, without whose involvement it would all be dust and ashes. I guess the good news is that those money-grubbing scoundrels, Messrs Phil Brewer and J Mark Brewer, no longer have their snouts in the trough since it all turned to dust and ashes in their mouths, although Phil Brewer still has the audacity to brag about his involvement in the whole sorry story as if it were some sort of success. Nuff said: here’s the breakdown from 2010:

Healthy blog!

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy Numbers

Featured image

About 3 million people visit the Taj Mahal every year. This blog was viewed about 34,000 times in 2010. If it were the Taj Mahal, it would take about 4 days for that many people to see it.

In 2010, there were 17 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 278 posts. There were 17 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 4mb. That’s about a picture per month.

The busiest day of the year was January 22nd with 418 views. The most popular post that day was Removals Fairies Strike at former SPCK Bookshop, Chester.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were christianbookshops.org.uk, christianbookshopsblog.org.uk, facebook.com, mattwardman.com, and twitter.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for proposal to strike off, spck ssg, spck, active – proposal to strike off, and gemstar exeter.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

Removals Fairies Strike at former SPCK Bookshop, Chester January 2010
28 comments

2

SSG at Companies House: “Status: Active – Proposal to Strike off” January 2009
14 comments

3

Final Former-SPCK Bookshop Expels Philip Brewer: Durham Cathedral January 2010
37 comments

4

Durham: Cathedral Shop Reopens March 2010
24 comments

5

A Tangled Web for Creditors as Durham Cathedral announces plans to Re-Open Shop under its own Management February 2010
36 comments

Durham: Cathedral Shop Reopens

Phil Groom writes:

Given that Durham Cathedral’s web droids took down the last couple of notices about the bookshop, I did wonder if this would actually happen — but it did: the Durham Cathedral Shop has now officially reopened, as of Monday, March 1st 2010. In view of the propensity of Cathedral notices to vanish without notice, here’s a screenshot and a transcript:

Durham: The Cathedral Shop is now open - we value your support

The Cathedral Shop is now open - we value your support

The Cathedral Shop is now open – we value your support

Durham Cathedral’s shop reopened on 1st March 2010 in a temporary space just off the Cathedral Cloisters. It is now managed and staffed directly by the Cathedral and is a new venture.

The arrangements from 1st March are short term as the Cathedral looks to open a larger shop in due course. A feasibility study has just been commissioned by the Cathedral, Durham University and Durham City Vision, to determine best use of the assets on the Durham World Heritage Site. Provision of retail is part of this study and recommendations will be made regarding the best location for a permanent shop.

The shop stocks a selection of gifts, books and church supplies.

Fairtrade Fortnight 2010: The Big Swap

Fairtrade Fortnight 2010: The Big Swap

One hopes that having opened in the middle of Fairtrade Fortnight, said selection includes a good range of fairtrade products — and that the staff can expect a fairer deal from their big swap in employers.

Not sure when I’ll be up there next myself, so if anyone would like to provide a photo of the new shop, please, I’ll gladly post it here. At this stage, however, whilst I wholeheartedly applaud the shop’s reopening, I have to confess my congratulations are a tad muted as we wait to see what the “provision of retail” in the Cathedral finally proves to be…

Praying HandsFinally, for those who haven’t cottoned on yet (that’s fairtrade cotton, of course), please make a note of Friday March 26th in your diary: it’s been designated as a Day of Prayer for the Christian book trade — for the whole of the Christian retail trade — here in the UK. There are meetings planned all over the country: from as far afield as Motherwell up in North Lanarkshire to Battle down in East Sussex, from Belfast in the West to London in the South East. If you plan to take part, please feel free to leave a note on the Day of Prayer page saying where and when, and hopefully someone else will turn up to join you.

It’s also hoped that churches will catch the vision and pray with us and for us on Palm Sunday, March 28th: if you’re a churchgoer, please badger and bother your church leaders until they too catch the vision and flag it up in church magazines and online on church blogs, facebook pages, twitter streams and websites; because the simple fact is that we’re all in this together, churches and bookshops/retailers. They’re even beginning to catch on over in the USA…

“Former-SPCK” Creditors: Letters to Church Times, The Bookseller

Matt Wardman writes:

I mentioned in a previous posting that we had written to a number of outlets to publicise the call for Creditors of the former-SPCK bookshop chain, and to raise a number of concerns about the way the brevity of the deadline, and the narrowness of the subset of creditors likely to see a notice placed only in The Bookseller.

Edited versions of our letters have been published in both the Church Times and the Church of England Newspaper, and the full letter in The Bookseller. Christian Marketplace has also carried an article on their website about the Call for Creditors.

We hope, in particular, to start a wider debate in the Book Trade about the nefarious activities of the Messrs Brewer over the last several years, which is long overdue.

In our view, and based on published and unpublished information, a criminal investigation is more than merited.

The Church Times edited out the bits about the deceptive 2008 Bankruptcy attempt in Texas. We are grateful to all publications which carried the letter.

This is the full text of our letter to The Bookseller:

Call for Creditors of Saint Stephen the Great Trust to come forward

Dear Sir

We write as the editors of the SPCK-SSG News Blog (spckssg.wordpress.com). We have been working, with many others, to scrutinise the management of the former-SPCK bookshop chain for 2 years now.

The chain of bookshops was taken over in October/November 2006 by a charity controlled by J Mark Brewer and Philip Brewer, and has been gradually run down since that date.

At least 7 different corporate entities have been used to in managing the chain. These comprise 3 charities (1119839, 1119839-1 and 1109008), 3 private companies (FC028292, FC028290, FC028291), and a Company Limited by Guarantee (06110519); some have similar or identical names, and all were controlled at the outset by various permutations of Brewer family members.

After complaints in 2008, and after a Charity Commission “Section 8” investigation (case ref WTF 1119839/685451), in April this year an “Interim Manager” was appointed to oversee the Saint Stephen the Great charity (1119839), and the Saint Stephen the Great Charitable Trust ( 1119839-1).

Last week The Bookseller included a notice from the Interim Manager, suggesting that “Creditors who believe that they have a valid claim against the Trustees of St Stephen the Great Charitable Trust incurred before 1 July 2007, should write to the Interim Manager at Begbies Traynor (Central) LLP, 32 Cornhill, London EC3V 3BT under ref S8703 before the close of business on 16 December 2009.” This notice causes us several concerns.

As far as we are aware the notice has only been published in The Bookseller, while the SPCK chain was a business with worldwide links. SPCK creditors may include English Cathedrals, communion wine suppliers, development charities, craft businesses, religious communities in the UK and overseas and others. How can such a range of creditors can be realistically expected to respond to a notice with a 3 week deadline in a booktrade magazine, posted up to 3 years after the relevant debts were incurred?

In summer 2008, J Mark Brewer attempted to take an organisation, which he called “St Stephen the Great, LLC”, into bankruptcy in the South Texas Bankruptcy Court (case 08-33689-H1). His court submission failed to identify the UK bookshops under his control, but did provide a substantially accurate listing of unpaid debts which had arisen over the previous 12 months. This included several hundred creditors, and more than £1m of debts. This case was subsequently dismissed “with prejudice”, and Mr Brewer – himself a lawyer and former Congressional Candidate – required to pay a penalty and take remedial education in the area of Legal Ethics. Under the quoted cutoff date of July 2007, many debts identified in these court submissions may be ruled out of a possible settlement.

We encourage all potential creditors to get in touch with the Interim Manager using the contact details in the notice, and/or those given on the Charity Commission site; these are stsgct@gothamerskine.co.uk via email, or by phone on 020 7490 1880.

We also hope that specific contact will be made with creditors identified in the Court Documents, who are potential creditors even within the restricted period, and that the deadline for responses will be extended to a more realistic date.

Yours etc

_Phil Groom. Editor, UK Christian Bookshops Directory, christianbookshops.org.uk Matt Wardman, SPCK-SSG News Blog, spckssg.wordpress.com

_

And our letter to the Church Times:

Call for Creditors of Saint Stephen the Great Trust to come forward

Dear Sir

First of all we must thank the Interim Manager appointed to oversee the Saint Stephen the Great Charitable Trust, and Saint Stephen the Great, charities for his work in “stopping the rot” in the former-SPCK bookshop chain, and recovering the shops (Durham Cathedral Bookshop excepted) from Philip and J Mark Brewer. At least we are now on the way *out* of the woods.

However, we note that last week The Bookseller trade magazine included a notice from the Interim Manager of the Saint Stephen the Great Trust, suggesting that “Creditors who believe that they have a valid claim against the Trustees of St Stephen the Great Charitable Trust incurred before 1 July 2007, should write to the Interim Manager at Begbies Traynor (Central) LLP, 32 Cornhill, London EC3V 3BT under ref S8703 before the close of business on 16 December 2009.” This causes us some concerns.

We have been working to scrutinise the mismanagement of the former-SPCK bookshop chain for more than 2 years now, and we are concerned by several aspects of the statement made by the Interim Manager.

The Interim Manager is completely right that this whole affair has been made fearsomely complex by the use by J Mark and Philip Brewer of at least 7 different corporate entities to obfuscate their actions over the last 3 years. These comprise 3 charities (1119839, 1119839-1 and 1109008), 3 private companies (FC028292, FC028290, FC028291), and a Company Limited by Guarantee (06110519), some of which have similar or identical names, and all controlled by various permutations of Brewer family members. There was also an 8th alleged corporate entity, SSG LLC, which appeared in J Mark Brewer’s sworn submissions to the South Texas Bankruptcy Court in summer 2008, but which turned out to exist only in his imagination.

The USDAW Employment Tribunal action, which was settled out of court earlier this year, was impeded by this complexity, and a lack of clarity as to which entity J Mark and Philip Brewer were acting on behalf of at different times, whether their actions at each point were legal or not, and their peculiar reluctance to keep written records. In the end USDAW had to name three separate bodies as respondents because it was not clear which entity employed and managed different members of staff at different points in time. If the Interim Manager had not commendably reached a negotiated settlement, this Tribunal would be going round in ever-decreasing circles even now.

The notice as published seeks creditors of “St Stephen the Great Charitable Trust”, without identifying a specific charity number, and restricts the call to debts incurred before the end of June 2007. Given the confused governance and business relationships, we suggest that the Interim Manager needs to cast a far wider net, at least initially.

We are also concerned that the deadline for responses to the notice has been set for December 16th. The SPCK bookshop chain was a business with worldwide links, and the range of creditors may well include Cathedrals owed rent, communion wine suppliers, development charities, craft businesses, religious communities in Eastern Europe, a consulting engineer used to design an improvement scheme, and others. All of these creditor groups appear in the 2008 Texas court documents referred to above, and – despite the 2008 bankruptcy attempt having been fraudulent – we have found the records of debtors declared to be largely accurate.

We are a little baffled as to how such a range of creditors can be realistically expected to respond to a notice with a 3 week deadline in a Booktrade Magazine, posted up to 3 years after the relevant debts were incurred. Also, would a single notice adequately meet legal requirements where such a wide range of creditors are affected?

So we urge all creditors, and potential creditors, to get in touch with the Interim Manager using the contact details in the notice, and/or those given on the Charity Commission site, which are stsgct@gothamerskine.co.uk via email, or by phone on 020 7490 1880.

We have done what we can to bring wider attention to the published notice, but we hope that specific contact will be made with the hundreds of suppliers identified in the Court Documents, who are potential creditors even within the period before June 2007. Any debts before this date would be in addition to the more than £1m of debts identified in the 2008 Court submissions.

We also hope that the deadline for responses will be extended to a more realistic period, perhaps to the end of January 2010.

Yours etc

Phil Groom. Editor, UK Christian Bookshops Directory, christianbookshops.org.uk Matt Wardman, SPCK-SSG News Blog, spckssg.wordpress.com Simon Barrow, Co-Director, Ekklesia, ekklesia.co.uk

Posted in Advice, Announcements, Bookshops, Info, News

Tagged Bookseller, Church Times, Mark Brewer, Phil Brewer, SPCK, SSG, SSGCT

Debts of the former SPCK bookshop chain: Church Times letter

Matt Wardman writes:

We have a letter published in the Church Times this week about the former SPCK bookshop chain. Kudos to the CT for putting it outside the paywall, where everyone can see it.

A fuller version, with a few points about the J Mark Brewer attempt (known to us as the Great Texan Wild Goose Chase) to dodge debts by putting a sort-of conflation of various bits of his organisations into Bankruptcy in South Texas, declaring lots of debts but none of the assets, is in this week’s Bookseller – but they don’t always put letters online.

Debts of the former SPCK bookshop chain

From Mr Phil Groom and others

Sir,

We must thank the Interim Manager appointed to oversee the Saint Stephen the Great Charitable Trust, and Saint Stephen the Great, charities for his work in stopping the rot in the former SPCK bookshop chain, and recovering the shops (Durham Cathedral Bookshop excepted) from Philip and J. Mark Brewer. At least we are now on the way out of the woods.

We note, however, the notice from him in The Bookseller last week suggesting that creditors “who believe that they have a valid claim against the Trustees of St Stephen the Great Charitable Trust incurred before 1 July 2007” should write to him at: The Interim Manager, Begbies Traynor (Central) LLP, 32 Cornhill, London EC3V 3BT, under “ref. S8703” before the close of business on 16 December.

This causes us some concerns. The Interim Manager is completely right that this whole affair has been made fearsomely complex by the use by J. Mark and Philip Brewer of at least seven different corporate entities over the past three years. These comprise three charities, three private companies, and a company limited by guarantee, some of which have similar or identical names, and all controlled by various permuta­tions of the Brewer family members.

The notice as published seeks creditors of “St Stephen the Great Charitable Trust”, without identifying a specific charity number, and restricts the call to debts incurred before the end of June 2007. Given the confused governance and business relation­ships, we suggest that the Interim Manager needs to cast a far wider net, at least initially.

We are also concerned about the deadline for responses. The SPCK bookshop chain was a business with worldwide links, and the range of creditors may well include cathed­rals, communion-wine suppliers, development charities, craft busi­nesses, religious communities in Eastern Europe, a consulting engineer, and others. All of these creditor groups appeared in Texas court documents in 2008.

We urge all creditors, and potential creditors, to get in touch with the Interim Manager using the contacts in the notice, and/or those given on the Charity Commission site stsgct@gothamerskine.co.uk, via email, or by phone on 020 7490 1880.

We hope that a specific contact will be made with the hundreds of suppliers identified in the court documents. We also hope that the deadline for responses will be extended to a more realistic period, perhaps to the end of January 2010.

PHIL GROOM MATT WARDMAN SIMON BARROW

Concerns about call for SPCK/SSG Creditors

Matt Wardman writes:

Following on from our previous posting about the call for creditors of the Saint Stehen the Great Charitable Trust to come forward within the next 2 weeks, only if they know that they are owed money from before July 2007, we have written to relevant magazines raising these concerns:

We are not publishing the full text of the letters here until after they have been published in the magazines and newspapers concerned, for obvious reasons.

We have not raised several further points, because we are not sure ourselves what difference they make, and would make our letters even longer than they are already:

Interim Manager's Notice

  1. The Interim Manager is in control of the two charities “Saint Stephen the Great”(1119839), and “Saint Stephen the Great Charitable Trust” (1119839-1).
  2. The Charity Commission website states that he controls the former, and he has himself declared himself to be in control of the latter when claiming possession of shops.
  3. These charities were forcibly merged by the Charity Commission around 23 July 2007.

So what is the basis for taking responsibility for actions of one charity only? Shouldn’t creditors of both of these charities be able to seek redress for debts incurred over a far greater period of time?

In any case:

There may be more, as and when we have (or understand) it.

SPCK AGM 2009 – Salient Points

Matt Wardman writes.

On this blog we have attempted to keep up with a dozen or more different strands, and have communicated formally or informally with everyone from bullied staff to suppliers left high and dry to the USDAW Union to the Church of England Pensions’ Board.

More than 12 months on, some of the tectonic plates in the SPCK-SSG saga have shifted, some staff have received compensation after a long legal battle, and the Bookshop Chain is nearly (except for Durham Cathedral Bookshop. Bah!) under the control of trustworthy management in the shape of the Charity Commission Interim Manager of the SSG Charity. Painful decisions will continue, but the management can now be relied upon to follow the law of the land, and a set of honest principles.

The saga will continue for a long time to come, as debt recovery action takes place (I hope), assets are recovered, the Messrs Brewer are (we hope) brought to what justice is possible, and some new initiatives and bookshops continue to emerge from the rubble of the destroyed SPCK chain.

Following the SPCK Annual General Meeting on October 1st, these are some joint reflections drawing out some of the more salient figures from the Accounts and Annual Report.

SPCK Annual General Meeting 2009

The performance of SPCK in its current format of publishing and mission still holds relevance and concerns for former bookshops staff, and the publication of the latest Annual Report at http://www.spck.org.uk/about_spck/spck_2009_rept_accts.pdf gives cause for question.

Former bookshop staff still have a loyalty to the Christian mission of SPCK as it affects the wider Christian world through its publishing programme and world wide literature initiatives; feel worried about the fate of the bookshop premises once owned by SPCK which were funded by the giving and the support of thousands of Christians for nearly 200 years; and apprehensive about the shortfall in the pension fund which affects existing SPCK pensioners and those yet to receive their pensions.

Those with financial expertise and insight can read the Accounts and draw conclusions but key paragraphs in the Annual Report are as follows:-

From the Chairman’s Overview

“First, we experienced a large drop in the valuation of our investments; and second, we suffered from the outcome of a revaluation of a pension fund.”

From the Financial Review

“The Society recorded a net surplus , before exceptional items and gains and losses, of £294,000 (2008: surplus of £751,0000. Exceptional items in this time of economic downturn include an increased provision of £3,832,000 for funding a revised larger deficit in pension funding relating to a now-closed scheme, which was identified after a revaluation of funds by the Church of England Pensions Board. In addition, there was a large non-cash cost in the form of a net loss on the revaluation of investment assets of £3,111,000 (2008: net loss of £1,318,000). The net movement in funds for the year was a deficit of £6,648,000 (2008: deficit of £674,000).”

Further on investments

“The investment in William Leech (Investments) Limited has been used as security to guarantee the Society’s liability for additional pension contributions to the Church of England Defined Benefits Scheme”. Presumably because of stock market performance, the ordinary shares in William Leech, at market value fell from £4,640,000 in 2008 to £3,521,000 in 2009.

Sales

Sales income from Publishing in 2009 was £1,733,000 – in 2008 £1,834,000. The budget figure for 2010 implies a further fall.

Freehold Properties

The freehold properties housing the former SPCK Bookshops are no longer quoted assets.

Commentary

The Christian book trade is said to be in a fragile state at present, and the loss of 23 SPCK Bookshops can have been no help to publishers especially coinciding with a Recession. One hears worrying rumours about the future of Biblica/STL and the Wesley Owen shops. If SPCK did not survive, not only would the future of Christian mission and publishing be harmed, but also the pensions of former staff would be jeopardised and the William Leech Foundation, a generous charitable donor, harmed.

The pensions of former staff are held by the C of E pensions board, so if SPCK itself suffered really serious trouble, those funds are safe.

Finally, things may change (again) as the economy recovers from the current recession – perhaps particularly for investments held by the pension fund.

Wrapping Up

If SPCK wish to respond to any comments here, we are happy to publish a statement or commentary.

Do we need an Anglican Books Forum?

Matt Wardman writes:

This is not within the strict remit of the SPCK campaign group, but we are a network including booksellers, readers, authors, publishers and all manner of interested parties – so I thought I would run a flag up the flagpole.

Future of Church House Publishing

Phil Groom has posted about a decision to hand over Church House Publishing, currently owned by the Archbishops’ Council which is the Church of England “Cabinet”, to the Hymns Ancient & Modern company:

The Archbishops’ Council is in discussion with Hymns Ancient & Modern with a view to outsourcing the Council’s publishing services. The proposed agreement would maintain the Council’s long-term commitment to publishing liturgy, key reference titles and other resources for the Church.

Clearly the SPCK/Brewer experience has caused us to realise that the people who will get hurt – if anyone does – who are the staff, customers and suppliers, need to have a voice. This applies even – and I need to emphasise this – if the other party is basically trusted as is certainly the case with Hymns Ancient & Modern, which is a different world from Philip and J Mark Brewer.

There are still important questions about the concentration of influence and other questions, and Phil puts this better well:

There is more detail on Wannabe Priest’s blog.

Anglican Books Forum

That has set off the thought whether we need a group / network / whatever that can be an arena where the range of people interested in books can have these conversations.

These are some initial thoughts.

Note: clearly “books” is the wrong word, since we are in a multimedia age – but it’s the best I could do for now.

Wrapping Up

This needs to be talked about more widely, since it is not our core purpose – which continues to be the scrutiny of the run down of the former-SPCK bookshop chain until the bitter (or not) end.

Also, it’s not something we can drive from here – anyone interested in picking up the baton? We can advise.

What do you think?

J Mark Brewer’s Declared Debts

Phil Groom writes:

Courtesy of Ministry of Truth, this information entered the public domain not long after Brewer himself submitted it as part of last year’s failed bankruptcy filing. Matt Wardman posted some analysis of the situation in December 2008, but as far as I’m aware, the actual schedule of debts has not previously been transcribed to text. So here it is, creditors as named by Brewer in his submissions to the Texas Bankruptcy Court dated June 19, 2008, sorted by amount due.

Please note that this list is not complete: it only includes the creditors listed on the initial Statement of Financial Affairs (pdf, 1.2 MB) — the Amended Schedule E & F (pdf, 1.9 MB), Schedule F Continuation (pdf, 1.7 MB), Schedule F Continuation 1 (pdf, 132 KB) and Schedule F Continuation 2 + Schedule G (pdf, 3.8 MB) run to 111 pages listing scores of other creditors with a total stated debt of $1,624,258.11.

The ‘Orthodox Christian Mission Fund’ — to whom the largest amount due was declared — is Brewer’s own organisation (described by him as ‘our “sister” charity’). Quite how Brewer could run up a debt just shy of half a million dollars to his own organisation — alongside a further $57k to his own company, Brewer & Pritchard, (4th largest debt) — remains something of a mystery.

Rumour has it that Booksolve have been paid. If any others beyond those identified earlier this month have been paid, they’re keeping quiet about it.

ECCR: PUTTING FAITH AND VALUES INTO ACTION, WORKING FOR JUSTICE

Matt Wardman writes:

q-logo-eccrOne of the organisations we have spoken to while pursuing the SPCK/SSG story has been the Ecumenical Council for Corporate Responsibility, a research and campaigning organisation started within the Industrial Chaplaincy movement that is now almost 20 years old. I first met them when they were developing a set of Environmental Benchmarks as far back as 1993 in partnership with organisations in the USA and Canada, and applying them to a large British Company. Miles Litvinoff has kindly supplied this article to bring their story up to date.

ECCR typically do long term work in partnership with groups such as Trade Unions and voluntary groups, and (in my view anyway) have demonstrated a great capability to engage in work for corporate responsibility at an institutional level.

The Ecumenical Council for Corporate Responsibility (ECCR) is a coalition of the British and Irish churches and others working for economic justice, environmental stewardship, and corporate and investor responsibility. It undertakes research, advocacy and dialogue with companies and investors and seeks to influence company policy and practice and to raise awareness among the churches, the investor community and the general public. ECCR member organisations control and influence more than £10 billion of invested assets.

ECCR was founded in 1989 following a meeting between British industrial chaplains and visiting Philippine trade unionists concerned about impacts of the operations of UK sugar transnational Tate & Lyle on communities in the Philippines. Responding to local concerns regarding operations of British business overseas has remained central to ECCR’s mission.

Church connections alerted ECCR in the 1990s to social conflict and human rights abuses linked to the oil and gas industry in Nigeria. After initial dialogue with the Shell Group, ECCR brought a ground-breaking shareholder resolution to Shell’s 1996 AGM. There had been few civil society shareholder resolutions in the UK before, and this helped bring about a major response on the part of Shell in of addressing corporate responsibility issues and relations with Niger Delta communities.

ECCR developed links with the Centre for Social and Corporate Responsibility (CSCR), a non-governmental organisation founded in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, in 2001. Since then we have maintained a joint dialogue with Shell directors in Nigeria and Europe to articulate the rights of people living in the Delta.

In 2006 ECCR brought a second shareholder resolution to Shell’s AGM, focused on the company’s social and environmental performance not only in Nigeria but also in Ireland (the Corrib gas project, County Mayo) and Russia (Sakhalin II oil and gas project). Some 17% of shareholders voted against or abstained from voting with the company on this resolution, a similar proportion as in 1996.

CSCR has provided ECCR with regular reports on the Niger Delta based on its participatory work with communities. This knowledge sharing informs ECCR’s and its members’ engagement with the company and brings considerable credibility to CSCR in Nigeria.

In 2007 ECCR and CSCR met in London with Wim Kok, former Dutch Prime Minister and chair of Shell’s Social Responsibility Committee, to discuss problems arising from poor implementation in Nigeria of its global operational standards. The meeting led to Shell’s Nigeria management participating in a multi‐stakeholder forum with Delta communities co-organised by CSCR. And following concerted pressure involving ECCR and faith-based investors in the USA, CSCR has recently reported successful rehabilitation of neighbourhood water boreholes by Shell Nigeria. Admittedly, many severe oil-industry-related problems remain for Delta communities that ECCR, CSCR and other civil society organisations must still tackle.

Other recent work by ECCR includes researching and reporting on the worldwide operations of mining giants BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto, co-founding the Working Group on Mining in the Philippines (chaired by former UK development secretary Clare Short MP), pioneering analysis on the global `water footprint’ of British and Irish food and drinks transnationals, and work-in-progress on vulnerable migrant workers in the British and Irish economies.

Shareholder engagement shows growing potential in the movement for greater corporate accountability in relation to human rights and the sustainable development agenda. The approach is in the main non-confrontational, mobilising institutional investors and civil society to press for constructive change on the part of companies. Although reforming corporate policies may be more easily achieved than changing practice on the ground, ECCR’s experience with Shell – and work by other coalitions such as on the cost of AIDS drugs, corporate lobbying, environmental standards and labour conditions in retail supply chains – shows that real change can be achieved.

Miles Litvinoff

ECCR Co-ordinator

Co-ordinator, the Ecumenical Council for Corporate Responsibility (ECCR)
PO Box 500, Oxford OX1 1ZL, UK
tel. +44 (0)20 8965 9682
mobile +44 (0)7984 720103
email: miles.litvinoff@eccr.org.uk
web: www.eccr.org.uk

(ECCR is a company limited by guarantee in England & Wales (No. 2764183) and a Body in Association with Churches Together in Britain and Ireland.)