LAWYERS ARE RESPONSIBLE AND FOSSIL FREE LONDON TARGET MAGIC CIRCLE FIRM A&O SHEARMAN FOR ROLE IN SAUDI GREENWASHING MEGA PROJECT
[EMBARGOED UNTIL 0900 (GMT), 18 FEBRUARY 2025]
Today, Lawyers are Responsible (LAR) and Fossil Free London (FFL) convened a peaceful protest outside Magic Circle law firm A&O Shearman and global law firm Akin in recognition of how these firms are fuelling climate chaos and for A&O Shearman’s role in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s flagship ‘NEOM’ project.
Last year, LAR and FFL organised a ‘Climate Crisis Exhibition’ outside the two law firms on Wednesday 13 November 2024 to draw attention to their role in accelerating climate and ecological breakdown and to demand that they drop their fossil fuel clients [1]. Today, Tuesday 18 January 2025, they returned to increase the pressure on the firms and called out A&O Shearman over their involvement in the NEOM infrastructure project in Saudi Arabia.
The Dark Side of NEOM
NEOM is a futuristic megacity being built on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast [2]. It is the flagship project of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030 – an ambitious programme that aims to diversify Saudi Arabia’s economy and reduce its dependence on oil revenues. Estimates for Neom’s overall cost have reached as high as $1.5 trillion [3] and the technical expertise of law firms like A&O Shearman is crucial to its execution.
Human Rights NGO ALQST has detailed the human rights violations involved in the construction of NEOM in their 2023 report The Dark Side of NEOM. The report highlighted that Saudi authorities have illegally displaced local tribes to make way for NEOM, without adequate compensation or offering alternative housing, and violently cracked down on members of the Huwaitat tribe who have peacefully opposed or resisted eviction. Since the notorious killing of local resident Abdul Rahim al-Huwaiti in a raid by special forces on his home in 2020, ALQST has documented the arbitrary arrests and unfair trials of other members of the Huwaitat tribe, several of whom have recently been sentenced to lengthy prison terms or even execution [4].
Therefore, it is well known that a wide range of human rights abuses have already been committed by the Saudi authorities, whilst firms like A&O Shearman continue to advise and profit from this audacious vanity project.
A&O Shearman’s Use of NEOM to Burnish their Green Credentials
LAR have previously canvassed outside A&O Shearman, drawing attention to the fact A&O Shearman facilitated £89 billion worth of fossil fuel transactions between 2018 – 2022 based on data from Law Students for Climate Accountability, making it “by far the worst offender” in the ‘Magic Circle’, an elite quintet of law firms headquartered in the United Kingdom [5]. The LAR team have been met with responses on the ground from lawyers working at A&O Shearman along the lines of: “but you don’t look at the great work we do on renewables.” The NEOM hydrogen and ammonia plant is presumably one of the renewables projects these lawyers are referring to. The project is hailed by A&O Shearman to be the largest renewables project and the largest hydrogen and ammonia plant in history which will save the world “3 million tons per year of CO2” [6].
A&O Shearman’s website claims:
“A highlight of our extensive hydrogen sector experience is that we are the lead law firm advising NEOM Company on all aspects of the novel Project Helios, a $6.5 billion world-scale green hydrogen and green ammonia production facility in Saudi Arabia. Powered by 4 GW renewable electricity, this is the largest renewables project in history and the world’s largest green hydrogen project, supplying 650 tons per day of carbon-free hydrogen for transportation globally and saving the world three million tons per year of CO2” [7].
Aside from the expropriation of land from, and persecution of local tribes, primarily the Huwaitat tribe, how a megacity built in the desert is intended to facilitate a ‘just transition’ for people in and beyond Saudi Arabia is left unexplained.
ALQST head of monitoring and advocacy Lina Alhathloul has said of NEOM:
“It is a project that is definitely not a priority for the Saudi people, given the current state of existing cities in the country. It is steered by a one-man-rule policy that does not respect international standards and lacks any transparency. In sum, it is built on the blood of Saudis, and migrant workers, for the benefit of western and international companies.” [8]
A Lawyers Are Responsible spokesperson said:
“Lawyers as professionals have a special role to uphold the public interest – profiting from projects that accelerate climate chaos or lead to the persecution of local tribes in support of greenwashing vanity projects – is unacceptable. So is the use of these projects to distract from the vast volumes of fossil fuel transactions firms like A&O Shearman continue to work on, unabated. We must call this out. We demand that A&O Shearman and Akin cease to act for fossil fuel clients and use their expertise to facilitate a genuine just transition to a low carbon, safe and peaceful future.”
REFERENCES:
[1] https://www.lar.earth/press-release-climate-crisis-exhibition/
[2] https://www.neom.com/en-us/about
[3]https://www.businessinsider.com/neom-saudi-arabia-5-billion-sustainable-ai-data-center-2025-2
[4]https://alqst.org/en/post/the-dark-side-of-neom-expropriation-expulsion-and-prosecution
[5] https://www.ls4ca.org/blog-show-all/the-carbon-circle
[7] https://energyinnovation.aoshearman.com/hydrogen-segment
[8] https://www.dezeen.com/2024/06/25/neom-blood-alqst-lina-alhathloul-interview/