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MILAN – A court in Milan on Wednesday acquitted oil giant Shell and Italian Eni of charges of corruption in a $ 1.1 billion bribery case involving the control of a lucrative Nigerian oil block.
In addition to the companies, Eni’s current CEO, his predecessor and a former oil minister in Nigeria were among 13 accused acquitted after a three-year trial over the purchase of the OPL 245 offshore oil field in 2011.
NGOs and activists expressed outrage over the verdict and called on prosecutors in Milan to appeal. The court has 90 days to state its reasoning.
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“This ruling may not mean a return to business as usual,” Barnaby Pace, senior campaigner for Global Witness, said in a statement. “This is no justification for any company or industry as a whole that continues to endanger our planet and shorten the lives of its inhabitants with their toxic practices.”
Prosecutors in Milan claim that $ 520 million of the $ 1.1 billion paid into a bail account for the acquisition was converted into cash and distributed as bribes, while a few hundred million went to a former oil minister went.
A court in Milan on Wednesday acquitted oil giant Shell and Italian Eni of charges of corruption in a $ 1.1 billion bribery case involving the control of a lucrative Nigerian oil bloc. Photographer: Jock Fistick / Bloomberg via Getty Images
Both Anglo-Dutch Shell and Eni, which own 30% by the Italian state, denied.
Eni welcomed the ruling and said in a statement that the court “finally ruled that the company, CEO Claudio Descalzi and the management involved in the proceedings all behaved in a lawful and correct manner.”
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Together with Descalzi, predecessor Paolo Scaroni and the former Minister of Nigeria, the court in Milan acquitted two former top executives of Shell and a series of intermediaries and advisers.
Defense attorneys argued that Eni and Shell did not pay bribes, but that they had obtained a license for the oil block and that all discussions remain at a technical-economic level.