Farmer's lawsuit demands compensation for oil land

An angered farmer is awaiting a verdict in a nearly $2 million lawsuit claiming that the South Oil Company took over his land without just compensation, in an early test of whether – and how – the government will compensate Iraqis who are displaced or adversely affected by the oil-sector expansion.

Sheikh Sadoon Hameed asserts that oil operations began on his farm land in Missan province in 2001. The Missan Oil Company, a new state firm which took over the province's oil operations from t...