Acquitted because the fact does not exist. After almost eight years of investigation and more than three of trial, it ends with an acquittal for all 15 defendants – including Claudio Descalzi, Paolo Scaroni, Eni e Shell – the trial of what – in the setting of the accusation – had been the biggest tangent in Italian history. One billion and 92 million considered for the accusation the payment of Eni and Shell to get their hands on the concession of the Opl 245, one of the richest oil fields in the world off the Nigerian coast.
Nigeria, Eni trial: the prosecutor asks for 8 years for corruption for the CEO Descalzi and Scaroni
For the college chaired by judge Marco Tremolada (with judges Mauro Gallina and Alberto Carboni) none of this has happened. And the 74 hearings of a trial that started at the beginning of 2018 were not enough for the deputy prosecutor Fabio De Pasquale and the prosecutor Sergio Spadaro to bring proof of the bribes to the courtroom. In the reconstruction of the accusation, the payment would have been made in favor of Malabu, of the then powerful oil minister Dan Etete, with a series of successive retrocessions to men of the Nigerian government nomenklatura, Italian intermediaries, top managers of Eni and Shell. Five managers of Eni ended up on trial (CEO Claudio De Scalzi and his predecessor Paolo Scaroni, the manager responsible for the activities of sub-Saharan Africa Roberto Casula, and the other two managers Ciro Antonio Pagano e Vincenzo Armanna), four from Shell (the then president of the Shell Foundation Malcom Brinded, and the other three former executives Peter Robinson, Guy Colgate e John Coplestone), in addition to the powerful former oil minister of Nigeria, Dan Etete, and the alleged intermediaries of the transaction Luigi Bisignani, the Russian Ednan Agaev, and the entrepreneur Gianfranco Falcioni.
The prosecutor had asked for sentences of up to ten years in prison for international corruption based on the analysis of internal communications to the two oil giants, letters rogatory in England, Nigeria and Switzerland, testimonies of managers. But the “smoking gun” on the passing of money, on corruption and on the alleged demotion to Italian top managers has never materialized. One of the central witnesses of the trial, the former Eni manager Vincenzo Armanna – accused but at the same time declarant and witness for the prosecution – had reported to the magistrates and then in the courtroom the story of a presidential guard, indicated as “Viktor”, who reportedly informed of the movement of 50 million dollars, in 2011, from Nigeria to Italy. Money contained in two trolleys, which the bodyguard would have seen in Aso Rock villa, the residence of former Nigerian president Jonathan Goodluck, and which would have returned to Italy aboard an aircraft “to be demoted to Eni men”. But in the trial this version was denied by the Nigerian security member himself, identified as Eke Isaac. Who claimed to have met Armanna even four years later. For its part, the Milan prosecutor’s office had obtained during the investigation the seizure of the 100 million collected by Emeka Obi and the 20 million that ended up in Gianluca Di Nardo, other intermediaries already sentenced in short to four years of imprisonment for international corruption. Different is the orientation of the court today, which canceled any reconstruction at the basis of corruption and acquitted all the defendants with full formula “because the fact does not exist”: for the acquisition of the Opl 245 oil concession there was no corruption.
Eni, clash with the prosecutor in the trial on alleged bribes in Nigeria
Luca De Vito, Sandro De Riccardis
“Finally Claudio Descalzi has been restored to his professional reputation and to Eni his role as a large company”, was the first comment shortly after the sentence of his lawyer, the lawyer Paola Severino. He also applauds the decision Enrico De Castiglione, lawyer of the former Eni Paolo Scaroni. “The centrality of the trial was reconfirmed, the thesis of the public prosecution was verified in a trial that lasted three years and was evidently considered unfounded – said De Castiglioni -. We hope to have finished this ordeal, because Paolo Scaroni is on trial. for twelve years and has been acquitted in all levels of judgment for Algeria and always with full formula “. For Nerio Diodà, Eni’s lawyer, “we can consider for all citizens of this country an outcome that guarantees balanced justice”.
“We welcome today’s decision of the Court of Milan – also comments Ben van Beurden, CEO of Royal Dutch Shell -. We have always maintained that the 2011 agreement was legitimate, aimed at resolving a ten-year legal dispute and restarting the development of the Opl245 block. At the same time, it was a difficult experience for us. Shell is a company that operates with integrity and we work hard every day to ensure that our actions not only follow the letter and spirit of the law, but also live up to the company’s broadest expectations of us. “
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