Royal Dutch Shell is to pay tens of millions of pounds in compensation to 15,000 Nigerian fishermen affected by two huge oil spills. The out of court deal, believed to be the biggest of its kind, ends a three year legal battle. The Anglo-Dutch oil company has agreed payouts averaging £2,000 each to the fishermen in the Bodo region of the Niger delta, as part of a compensation package worth £55 million ($83 million) for what it called two "highly regrettable" spills in 2008...The deal settles a lawsuit brought against Shell in London over leaks in the Bomu-Bonny pipeline that caused environmental damage to rural coastal settlements of 49,000 people living in 35 villages, many of whom are subsistence farmers and fishermen...Mutiu Sunmonu, managing director of SPDC, said it was "pleased" to have reached agreement and clean-up work would begin soon. Human rights group Amnesty International called the settlement "an important victory for the victims of corporate negligence".