In the corruption case, Eni and Shell are accused of buying Nigeria’s OPL 245 offshore oilfield in the knowledge that the vast majority of the $1.3 billion purchase price would be siphoned off to agents and middlemen in corrupt payments.

Emilio Parodi: JULY 4, 2019

MILAN, July 4 (Reuters) – Italian prosecutors are widening an investigation into suspected obstruction of justice by officials of oil group Eni, sources said, threatening to open a new legal front for the company as it defends itself in a major corruption trial.

The inquiry is preliminary and has been overshadowed by the ongoing trial, which centres on the 2011 purchase of a Nigerian oilfield by Eni and oil major Shell, but it is gathering momentum, said three sources familiar with the probe. read more

Italian prosecutors accuse former and current executives of the two energy giants of paying bribes to secure the licence. In March 2019, Dutch prosecutors said they were preparing criminal charges against Shell over OPL 245.

BY SAHARAREPORTERS, NEW YORK: JUL 18, 2019

According to Reuters, one of the oil industry’s biggest corruption trials revolves around a Nigerian offshore licence known as OPL 245, which Royal Dutch Shell and Italy’s Eni bought in 2011.

Italian prosecutors accuse former and current executives of the two energy giants of paying bribes to secure the licence.

Shell and Eni, and their executives have denied the accusations and any wrongdoing.

Below are a list of legal actions that have arisen from the award of OPL 245: read more

Although Shell and ENI initially claimed they did not know the money would end up with Mr Etete and his cronies, evidence has shown that claim to be false.

Oladeinde Olawoyin: July 18, 2019

A major witness in the long-running Malabu oil scandal on Wednesday told an Italian court that Eni officials knew that the controversial payment made in the deal would go to Malabu oil company, controlled by Nigeria’s former oil minister, Dan Etete.

Vincenzo Armanna, former Eni manager and defendant in the corruption trial, said in his testimony that it was clear to everyone involved in the deal that Mr Etete would get over $1 billion, adding that there was no doubt the money was going to Malabu. read more

Oil major Shell (RDSa.L), which jointly bought the offshore field with Eni, is also on trial for corruption over the deal.

Emilio Parodi: 17 July 2019

MILAN (Reuters) – Officials from Eni (ENI.MI) sought to convince a witness, a former Eni manager, to withdraw some statements he made during investigations into a Nigerian corruption case involving the Italian oil group, a court heard on Wednesday.

Prosecutor Fabio De Pasquale made the comment in a trial hearing into the case, during a legal debate over a request by Eni lawyers to adjourn proceedings to give more time to consider evidence in a related obstruction-of-justice investigation. read more

An Italian prosecutor told a local court on Wednesday the court was made aware that managers at Italy’s oil major Eni tried to tamper with a witness in an ongoing investigation into alleged corruption in an oil block award in Nigeria.

“We have become aware that Eni, through its managers, would have tried to influence and would have approached the defendant (Vincenzo) Armanna to convince him to withdraw some of his statements,” Reuters quoted prosecutor Fabio De Pasquale as telling the court today. read more

In May 2018, the main trial in Milan started, in which Eni Chief Executive Claudio Descalzi, former Shell exploration chief Malcolm Brinded and 11 other defendants, as well as the two companies, were accused by Italian prosecutors of paying bribes to secure the licence. All the accused denied wrongdoing.

FACTBOX-Legal cases sparked by Nigerian oilfield licence award

LONDON, July 17 (Reuters) – One of the oil industry’s biggest corruption trials revolves around a Nigerian offshore licence known as OPL 245, which Royal Dutch Shell and Italy’s Eni bought in 2011.

Italian prosecutors accuse former and current executives of the two energy giants of paying bribes to secure the licence.

Shell and Eni, and their executives, have denied the accusations and any wrongdoing.

Below are a list of legal actions that have arisen from the award of OPL 245:

* Some key issues related to the OPL 245 case came to light in two separate civil suits  filed shortly after the 2011 deal by a Nigerian, Emeka Obi, and a former Russian diplomat, Ednan Agaev, who said they were owed millions of dollars by a Nigerian company, Malabu Oil and Gas, for arranging meetings with Shell and Eni in relation to the licence, court filings show. Obi was awarded at least $100 million for his work as a “dealmaker”, the court records show. Agaev reached an out-of-court settlement. read more

Swiss police found the documents in a briefcase they seized in April 2016 in an inquiry unrelated to the corruption case, and the source said Milan prosecutors believed the documents could be vital to their prosecution of Eni and Shell. But Italy’s request for the documents to be handed over has been blocked by Swiss courts after repeated legal challenges by the owner of the briefcase, Nigerian lawyer Emeka Obi, who was charged alongside Eni and Shell executives in the graft case.

By Reuters• last updated: 21/06/2019 – 13:04

MILAN (Reuters) – Italian prosecutors have complained to Switzerland about lengthy delays in obtaining evidence they have requested in an international corruption case involving oil firms Shell and Eni, a source familiar with the matter said.

Milan prosecutors wrote in April to the Geneva prosecutors’ office in a previously undisclosed letter, describing their three-year wait for documents to be handed over by Swiss authorities as “unprecedented”, the source said. read more

Printed below is a translation of an article published this weekend by the Dutch broadcaster NRC. It is about the Shell internal communications and documents relating to the OPL 245 Nigerian oil deal corruption case seized during a raid carried out by the Dutch Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD) at Shell HQ in the Hague in 2016. In a controversial move, Shell lawyers are resorting to legal machinations to frustrate the progress of the Dutch proceedings. On this occasion by claiming legal privilege and secrecy over the seized evidence. Criminal proceedings relating to the same massively corrupt oil deal are moving forward quickly in Italy (but at a snail’s pace in the Netherlands, Shell’s home country). A related tapped telephone conversation involving Shell CEO Ben van Beurden when he ordered that no documents should be volunteered to the investigators carrying out the raid can be heard here. Undisputably, another Shell cover-up tactic. So much for Shell’s claimed business principles from a company that seems to employ more MI6 people than MI6. Listen to the taped call. 

Dutch corruption case against Shell is, according to lawyers, inevitably delayed

Professional secrecy

Call for OM to simplify procedures related to non-disclosure law encounters astonishment among lawyers and scientists

By our editors Carola Houtekamer and Merijn Rengers: Amsterdam.

Shell and the Public Prosecution Service were honest about it on Thursday. Yes, they clash over the internal Shell documents that were seized by the FIOD investigation service at the head office in The Hague during the beginning of 2016. They deal with the corruption case involving OPL245, a mega-oil field off the coast of Nigeria. read more

It appears, according to court documents, at the request of ‘Royal Dutch Shell plc’ and four suspected former Shell employees who are mentioned by name and by name in the Italian summons. These are two former British secret agents, hired by Shell as oil men whose main task was to make the inscrutable Nigerian policy more transparent. And two senior Shell managers: former board member Malcolm Brinded and former Africa director Peter Robinson. The foursome is said to have been closely involved in preparing the bribes payments…: “He is a former head of the British secret service MI6, but really no more than a junior employee at Shell in Nigeria.

…in the Netherlands, the FIOD invaded the head office in 2016 and a criminal case for corruption seems imminent. 

Translation of an article published today by the Dutch broadcaster NRC Handelsblad.

“By Nigerian standards, this was a great oil deal”

Shell lawsuit: After months of waiting, Shell took the floor on Tuesday in the court case about possible bribery at the unexplored Nigerian oil field OPL245.

By Merijn Rengers, Carola Wood Room, June 4, 2019

Room 7, where the largest corruption case in Dutch company history is fought, is bursting at the seams. It is warm and noisy and the available seats are already set aside early in the morning for at least 25 Italian lawyers, their crowd of assistants and prosecutors. The other listeners – Shell representatives, activists, interested parties – are forced to sit and sit in the back, or cage in two paying cells on either side of the courtroom where normally detained suspects await their verdict. read more

03 JUNE 2019

BP has agreed to pay around $10bn (£8bn) to a businessman involved in a suspicious energy deal.

The energy giant bought Frank Timis’ stake in a gas field off the coast of Senegal for $250 million in 2017.

But documents obtained by BBC Panorama and Africa Eye reveal that BP will also pay his company between $9bn and $12bn in royalties.

Both BP and Mr Timis deny any wrongdoing. read more

The MOSOP president said the Ogoni struggle for justice in Nigeria has consumed over 4,000 lives and currently endangers the lives of over 1,000,000 people owing to Shell and Nigeria’s unjust practices and unfair laws that oppress indigenous communities like the Ogoni people. read more

Earlier this month, a Dutch court ruled that it had the jurisdiction and would hear a damages lawsuit against Shell brought by the widows of activists executed by Nigeria’s government after the protests in Ogoniland in the 1990s.

By Tsvetana Paraskova – May 27, 2019, 4:00 PM CDT

The Nigerian unit of Royal Dutch Shell doesn’t have any plans to return to exploring or producing oil in Ogoniland in Nigeria’s Rivers state after it ceased operations there in the 1990s, Igo Weli, General Manager, External Relations, at the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) said this weekend at the release of Shell Nigeria’s 2019 Briefing Notes.

SPDC, as operator of the SPDC Joint Venture, carried out exploration and production operations in Ogoniland from the 1950s until the early 1990s. Production ceased in 1993 following a rise in violence, threats to staff, and attacks on facilities, Shell said. read more

RETIRED SHELL CHIEF SAFETY OFFICER: Royal Dutch Shell (RDS) has gained its reputation as an organisation with no morality that if it can get away with it will lie repeatedly even when trapped by its own evidence, by its own falsehoods. It seems based on its track record RDS has no justification to support its protestations about public authorities using whatever legitimate means they can to dig out from the corruption cesspit the truth.  

By Bill Campbell [from 1996 to retirement Upstream Senior Maintenance Engineer, Global Consultant on this and Techical and Finance audits before retirement as SIEP Audit Manager]

Re the article on the Moerdijk explosion and the Dutch prosecutors getting to the truth don’t you think it’s a bit rich that RDS protests? Royal Dutch Shell (RDS) has gained its reputation as an organisation with no morality that if it can get away with it will lie repeatedly even when trapped by its own evidence, by its own falsehoods. read more

ABUJA, May 10 (Reuters) – The Nigerian government has accused former President Goodluck Jonathan and his then oil minister of accepting bribes and breaking the country’s laws to broker a $1.3 billion oil deal eight years ago, a London court filing shows.

The deal, in which Anglo-Dutch company Royal Dutch Shell and Italian peer Eni jointly acquired the rights to the OPL 245 offshore oilfield, has spawned legal cases spanning several countries.

In papers advancing a London commercial court suit against Shell and Eni, lawyers for the Nigerian government said Jonathan and former oil minister Diezani Alison-Madueke conspired to “receive bribes and make a secret profit”, keeping the government from getting what it was owed from the deal. read more

Neil Munshi in Abuja and Anjli Raval in London: 10 MAY 2019:

The Anglo-Dutch and Italian companies paid $1.3bn for the block, but Nigeria believes the undeveloped deepwater block could be worth at least $3.5bn and damages should now be calculated on that basis, documents filed in the commercial division of the High Court in London said.

The claim in the English courts alleges that Shell and Eni “both paid bribes” either directly or indirectly and senior executives at both companies “received bribes (or were intended to receive bribes)” as part of the 2011 deal. read more

LATEST FROM BLOOMBERG NEWS:

In another payment recounted in the lawsuit, Peter Robinson, then Shell’s regional vice president, ended up with “several hundred million Swiss frances”… Shell last year accused Robinson of taking kickbacks, but said he purposely tried to hide it from the company. The Nigerian government says none of the transactions could have happened without the support or willful “blind eye” of Shell CEO Peter Voser, former CFO Simon Henry, and current head of integrated gas Wetselaar, among others. Its oil and gas exploration director at the time Malcolm Brinded was “closely involved,” the government claims. Brinded is also on trial in Milan.

By Kelly Gilblom, Jonathan Browning, and Chiara Albanese
7 May 2019, 12:29 BST

*Nigeria says top Shell brass approved illegal OPL 245 oil deal

*Companies also denied wrongdoing in 2011 criminal bribery case

Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Eni SpA face additional corruption allegations over a Nigerian oil deal, after the West African country’s government said in a London lawsuit that it believes a handful of executives, including CEOs, were tied to more than $1 billion in bribery payments.

In court documents filed in early April, the Nigerian government said the oil companies’ senior managers agreed in 2011 to make a large payment for an offshore oil block, understanding the money would trickle down to government officials and senior executives from both companies. The filing singles out individuals who haven’t previously been caught up in the scandal, including former Shell Chief Executive Officer Peter Voser and Maarten Wetselaar, the current head of its large natural gas business. read more