Fourteen individual plaintiffs filed a class action suit against Royal Dutch Petroleum and Shell Transport, plc, on September 20 for alleged human rights abuses in Ogoniland, Nigeria. The complaint, filed by Philadelphia-based class action law firm Berger & Montague, uses the federal Alien Tort Claims Act to charge violations of customary international law relating to Shell's oil operations in Ogoniland, an area north of the Niger delta in southeast Nigeria.