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London, March 4: The top executive of the Royal Dutch/Shell Group, the world’s third-largest oil company, was forced to resign on Wednesday after an internal investigation into the company’s surprise disclosure in January that it had overstated its oil and natural-gas reserves by 20 percent.
The chairman of the company, Philip Watts, stepped down less than a month after insisting that he would stay on despite criticism from investors over how the company handled the restatement. Walter van de Vijver, the chief executive of the exploration and production business and once seen as Watt’s successor, also stepped down on Wednesday.
The extraordinary shakeup at the British-Dutch giant, a company known for its conservative ways and its byzantine corporate structure, comes amid a formal investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
But it was a review of the restatement by Shell’s audit committee and outside advisers that led to the executives’ ouster, a spokeswoman for the company said Wednesday. She declined to elaborate on what the inquiry uncovered, but she said that the findings would be forwarded to the SEC and other regulatory agencies. The ousters are certain to raise more questions about Shell.
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