Italian judge to rule on Eni, Shell indictment over OPL 245 on Dec. 20
An Italian judge is expected to decide on December 20 whether to send oil majors Eni and Shell to trial over alleged corruption in Nigeria, two legal sources told Reuters Tuesday.
Under Italian law a company can be held responsible if it is deemed to have failed to prevent, or attempt to prevent, a crime by an employee that benefited the company.
Milan prosecutors have asked for the two companies and some past and present managers, including current Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi, to be indicted in a case revolving around the purchase of a Nigerian oilfield in 2011. A judge must now rule whether to press charges or dismiss the case.
Recall that Senior Royal Dutch Shell executives have been charged in Italy for their role in a vast bribery scheme that deprived Nigerian of over a billion dollars, the Milan Public Prosecutor’s Office confirmed on October 13 to Global Witness, a non-governmental organisation fighting corruption.
Officials facing trial include Malcolm Brinded, the second most powerful person in the company when the deal was struck. Others charged are Peter Robinson, former Vice president for Shell’s sub-Saharan Africa operations and Guy Colegate and John Copleston, former Shell employees and ex-MI6 agents as well as the company itself, also facing bribery charges alongside the individuals.
The Italian inquiry is one of several under way into the acquisition of the OPL-245 field for about $1.3 billion, including current cases in the Netherlands and Nigeria.
On Tuesday a court in Milan decided to wrap a strand of the investigation involving three former Shell managers and current Shell Foundation chairman Malcolm Brinded into the main inquiry, the sources said. All the parties involved have denied any wrongdoing.
In 2011, Shell and Italian oil giant Eni paid $1.1 billion for OPL 245, an oil block located on the southern edge of the Niger Delta allegedly knowing that the money would go to a front company secretly owned by a former Nigerian oil minister, Dan Etete, who had been convicted for money-laundering. Etete was accused of awarding himself the block while in office under the former military dictator Sani Abacha, through Malabu Oil and Gas, a company he owned.
OPL 245 holds significant discovered hydrocarbon reserves and will increase Shell’s reserves by a third. Two oil and gas discoveries have been made on the block. Etan and Zabazaba were discovered in 2005 and 2006 respectively. Eni plans to develop the Etan and Zabazaba fields in phases with subsea wells tied back to a leased floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel