A Milan court on Wednesday acquitted energy company Eni, its chief
executive and Royal Dutch Shell in the oil industry’s biggest corruption
case revolving around the $1.3 billion acquisition of a Nigerian oilfield a
decade ago.
The sentence, read out in court by judge Marco Tremolada, came more than
three years after the trial first began and after 74 hearings.
Tremolada said the companies and defendants had been acquitted as there
was no case to answer.
Rulings in Italy can be appealed and only become enforceable once they
are final.
The Federal Government said it was surprised and disappointed by the
verdict and would consider whether to appeal once its lawyers had read the
written judgment.
The long-running case revolved around the $1.3 billion purchase by Eni
and Shell of the OPL 245 offshore oilfield in Nigeria in 2011 from Malabu Oil
and Gas, a company owned by former oil minister Dan Etete.
Prosecutors alleged that just under $1.1 billion of that amount was
siphoned off to politicians and middlemen, including Etete, a convicted money
launderer who acquired the field in 1998 when he was oil minister under
military ruler Sani Abacha.
Prosecutors had called for Eni and Shell to be fined, for a number of
past and present managers from both firms, including Eni Chief Executive
Claudio Descalzi, to be jailed and for $1.1 billion to be confiscated from the
defendants.
The defendants all denied any wrongdoing.
“This is a huge blow for natural resource governance and transparency in
Nigeria,” said Matthew Page, associate fellow at the Chatham House Africa
programme. “The OPL 245 deal has been a multi-layered tale of corruption and
malfeasance and international complicity that’s been going on for two decades.”
“This judgment will continue to sting, as it is a real and visible
defeat for global and Nigerian anti-corruption efforts,” he said.
The verdict comes at a time when investors are putting more and more
pressure on oil companies both to fight climate change and come up with
sustainable business models that take into account the social impact of their
activities.
Shell and Eni also face scrutiny over the OPL 245 deal in other
countries. In March, 2019, Dutch prosecutors said they were preparing criminal
charges against Shell and Nigeria has also launched an investigation.
Shell Chief Executive Ben van Beurden said it had always maintained the
2011 purchase of OPL 245 was legal and designed to resolve a decade-long
dispute over its ownership.
“At the same time, this has been a difficult learning experience for
us,” he said in a statement. “Shell is a company that operates with integrity
and we work hard every day to ensure our actions not only follow the letter and
spirit of the law, but also live up to society’s wider expectations of us.”
“After dozens of hearings, thousands of documents analysed and
testimonies, we have finally reached a judgment that restores Descalzi’s
professional reputation and Eni’s role as a leading energy company and the
pride of our country,” said Paola Severino, Descalzi’s lawyer and a former
justice minister.
The defendants said the purchase price for OPL 245 was paid into a
Nigerian government account and subsequent transfers were beyond their control.
The exploration licence for the field, some 150 km (95 miles) off the
Niger Delta, has not been revoked but it has not been converted into a mining
licence and no oil has been produced.
Senior campaigner at Global Witness, Barnaby Pace, urged the prosecution
to appeal Wednesday’s verdict.
“Two middlemen have already been found guilty for their role in this
deal in a separate trial. A criminal trial of Shell and Eni’s Nigerian
subsidiaries is ongoing in Nigeria while they also face an investigation in The
Netherlands.” he said.
“Today’s verdict does not mark the final word in this scandal for Shell
and Eni.”
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