Posts under ‘Bribery’

Time running out for prosecutors to obtain potentially crucial documents seized in Geneva apartment raid

Ben Chapman: @b_c_chapman

Giant oil companies, offshore accounts, ex-MI6 agents, champagne lunches, a former Nigerian president and allegations of one of the biggest bribes ever paid – the corruption case against Shell and Italy’s Eni filed by prosecutors in Milan over a shady $1.3bn deal for a vast African oil field has could have been lifted from the pages of an espionage thriller.

The latest developments thicken the plot further with a cache of documents seized in a raid on a Swiss financier’s apartment that could be crucial to the case, leaving prosecutors in a race against time to get them to Milan as trial hearings get underway this week.

The Geneva raid uncovered a briefcase belonging to Emeka Obi, a middleman who received millions of dollars from the deal and is in the dock along with several senior Shell and Eni executives.

Inside the briefcase, Swiss prosecutors found a laptop, two Nigerian passports, five sim cards and a hard drive containing 41,000 documents that prosecutors believe could be crucial to the trial playing out on the other side of the Alps. read more

Seán McCárthaigh: August 2, 2018

The release of odourless gas into the national network last September, meaning 10,000 homes had to go without gas for days, was due to poor operating procedures at the Corrib gas refinery in Co Mayo. A report by the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU) concluded that the emergency on September 21, 2017, was due to a technical failure at the Shell E&P Ireland terminal at Bellanaboy. The CRU said it had followed up its findings with enforcement actions against both Shell and Gas Networks Ireland (GNI), which operates the national gas network. As gas has no smell, odourant is added by Shell at its Bellanaboy facility so that people can identify any leaks. The investigation found that the company’s operating procedures did not allow… Continue reading article read more

CAIN BURDEAU: July 19, 2018

CASTELBUONO, Sicily (CN) – Nigeria could learn Friday at a court in Milan whether it can pursue damages against oil giants Shell and Eni in a sprawling international corruption case.

The trial centers on a $1.3 billion bribery deal Royal Dutch Shell Plc. and Italy-based Eni S.p.A. executives allegedly entered into in 2011 with Nigerian officials, including then-President Goodluck Jonathan, to purchase a much-coveted oil field off the coast of Nigeria.

In December 2017, Italian judges in Milan ordered the companies and a number of individuals, including top executives at Shell and Eni, to stand trial. The trial has been slow to unfold and remains in preliminary hearings. read more

Shell CEO Ben van Beurden stands to the left of Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari (the two people in the centre of the photo). 

By John Donovan

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has just given oil giant Shell a nod for a new $5bn investment deal in a major Nigerian oil and gas project.

This was after being feted by Shell senior management during his just concluded 4 day visit to the Netherlands, which including a meeting with Royal Dutch Shell Plc Chief Executive Officer, Ben van Beurden.

AFP: Nigerian leader backs major Shell project on Dutch trip: 2018-07-19 17:07 read more

John Donovan 1984

By John Donovan

My company Don Marketing supplied the spectacularly successful Shell Make Money game that ran on Shell forecourts during 1984/5 in a number of countries, including the UK. 

Years later, Shell deliberately ignored the signed confirmation of agreement below while surreptitiously producing a subsequent flawed Shell Make Money without our knowledge or consent. 

Shell executives blatantly lied about what was going on but was forced to settle the matter after Don Marketing issued a High Court Writ. read more

Extracts from the ebook “John Donovan, Shell’s Nightmare” (now available on Amazon websites globally)

Extract from page 147.

I publish articles on my website penned by me and authored by Shell insiders and former Shell employees.

A brief selection:

Roll call of Shell toxic brands deadly to insects, crop pests AND humans: 20 August 2010

Shell Corrib employee group leaking information to website: 6 August 2010

Adventures in Shell ‘Matulaland’: 11 June 2010

DATA SECURITY BREACH AT SHELL PUTS ITS EMPLOYEES AT RISK: 4 February 2010

Shell’s North Sea history of safety violations, blackmail and blacklisting: 28 January 2010

SEX, DRUGS & CORRUPTION SPONSORED BY SHELL

News headlines file for Royal Dutch Shell Sex and Drugs Scandal: 27 May 2009

Royal Dutch Shell Fat Cat Malcolm Brinded: Big Brain but no scruples: 28 May 2009 read more

POSTING ON SHELL BLOG BY “SNIPER” 20 JUNE 2018

There’s a bit of pattern here. Corruption seems to be running through the veins of Shell. We see in all these recent tax articles how they seem to be snuggled up in bed with the Dutch Government. Will anything come of this? Of course not silly. It has been going on for years. There is even a department called Government Relations which is staffed by – yes you guessed it – former government employees. Where was Van Beurden a few days ago, for three whole days? The very secretive Bilderberg meeting in Turin (Guardian article by Charlie Skelton can be found on this website), along with many of the worlds elite businessmen and politicians, AND the Dutch king. The outcomes of the meeting were not something I saw on any of the Shell internal or external communication messaging. Funny that, seeing how they always share even the most mundane van Beurden news. So will Shell be brought to account for its actions in OPL? I somehow doubt it. But there is some hope. Will the real Slim Robinson please stand up. read more

REUTERS STAFF: JUNE 13, 2018 / 4:03 PM

ROME (Reuters) – Italy’s Supreme Court threw out an appeal from Shell and four former Shell managers to stymie a corruption trial that has also involved Eni’s chief executive, legal sources said on Wednesday.

The long-running graft case on alleged corruption in Nigeria, revolves around the 2011 purchase by Eni and Shell of Nigeria’s OPL-245 offshore oilfield for about $1.3 billion. The trial began last month, with the next hearing set for June 20. read more

Jun. 13, 2018 12:05 PM ET|By: Carl Surran, SA News Editor

Italy’s Supreme Court rejects an appeal from Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A, RDS.B) and four former Shell managers to reverse a trial on alleged corruption in Nigeria, which also has implicated Eni (NYSE:E) CEO Claudio Descalzi.

The appeal hoped to reverse the trial to the preliminary hearing stage due to what it said were procedural errors, but the court ruled that the appeal was inadmissible.

Nine current and former company executives or contractors, including Descalzi, are accused by Italian prosecutors of paying bribes to secure the license to explore Nigeria’s OPL-245 offshore oilfield, which holds ~9B barrels of oil but has never entered production. read more

June 12, 2018 Margot Gibbs, Lionel Faull and Oladeinde Olawoyin

A leak of private property data in Dubai has shed new light on how the proceeds of a notorious $1.3 billion oil deal involving Shell may have been spent on luxury villas in the secretive Arab Emirate.

PREMIUM TIMES’ UK partner, Finance Uncovered, has discovered the name of former Nigerian oil minister Daniel Etete among thousands of property and residency records compiled by assorted real estate professionals in Dubai. The leak was obtained by the U.S. non-profit C4ADS, passed to the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and seen by Finance Uncovered.

Mr Etete was the suspected mastermind behind a 2011 deal known as OPL245 that is alleged to be one of the most corrupt in the history of the oil industry. read more

The general thrust seems to be that a current OPL 245 contract tender has been rigged for corrupt purposes benefitting Shell, ENI and certain Nigerian parties. Shell has past expertise in such matters

By John Donovan

More information has arrived as a follow up to the information we published recently in the article “More OPL 245 corruption, continues into 2018?”

OPL 245 is the notorious Nigerian oil deal involving the fraudster Dan Etete and more recently, his equally charming nephew, Ken Etete.

From what I know thus far, the leaked documents I am receiving now on an almost daily basis are authentic and were not previously known to OPL 245 investigators. I now have multiple insider anonymous contributors whose identity is known only to me. Frankly, I don’t know what it all means, but the information is apparently valuable to OPL 245 investigators who are trying to unravel what is going on. read more

By John Donovan

A high level insider source is alleging current major corruption in the continuing OPL 245 Zabazaba Shell/Eni JV project.

The source has supplied documents/emails from 2014 to 2018 containing references to  various parties, including Shell and Eni, relating to OPL 245. Links to the relevant leaked information/evidence are published below. 

It may assist investigators from anti-corruption organisations (such as Global Witness and Finance Uncovered) more familiar with the overall situation, who are trying to put all of the pieces together in a web of continuing financial machination and complexity.  read more

Posting by Bill Campbell, retired Shell HSE Group Auditor, on the article “Shell are in trouble. Deep trouble”  

RDS vs. Peter Robinson Esq as trouble looms

At the time I found it inexplicable that Shell launched it’s vitriolic attack against its ex employee and obedient servant Peter Robinson. With only weeks to go before the Trial in Italy WHY on earth would Shell undermine its own case at the upcoming trial by suggesting that Robinson was other than an upstanding member of society?

Well, it now appears kinda obvious, Mr Robinson it seems had gone outside the tent and has started urinating in, assisting the prosecution perhaps, if so deep trouble clearly looms. read more

UPDATE 6 JUNE 2018: Overnight developments:

POSTING BY JOHN DONOVAN ON SHELL BLOG

After putting “A Mole” in direct contact with one of the key investigative organisations in relation to the OPL 245 corruption scandal, this anonymous source has now supplied them with more information relating to the OML 30 Nigerian oil deal involving Shell/Heritage Oil and Guy Colegate. read more

Frankly, I don’t give a f*** about Shell’s lawyers. I already have Shell internal communications stating that Shell will never sue me because I have too much “internal laundry” on the unscrupulous oil giant.

A MESSAGE TO THE STREET FIGHTER, PETER ROBINSON: FROM JOHN DONOVAN

Hello Peter

You may have seen the Shell Blog post from HAN SOLO that I have published as an article: “Shell are in trouble. Deep trouble”.

The author quotes the wise saying: ‘keep your friends close, keep your enemies even closer’? There is another equally ancient proverb that may also apply: ‘My Enemy’s Enemy is My Friend’.

I know what its like to be betrayed and become the subject of sinister activity by Shell and its army of spooks and ruthless, unprincipled lawyers. You are probably beseiged by such activity at the moment. read more

Peter Robinson’s dossier on Shell Nigerian corruption?

FROM A POSTING ON OUR SHELL BLOG – IS THE AUTHOR THE “STREET FIGHTER” PETER ROBINSON?

Dear John,

I believe Shell are in trouble. Deep trouble. Not only has this OPL OML debacle seen the back of some of its most senior execs, Brinded, Voser, Henry etc but now we can expect to see a Pandora’s Box being opened by Peter Robinson. I expect fireworks. The company is very quick when it comes to deploying its resources to bully and shut up it’s external critics or shamelessly pay off those that dare to challenge them. However, in Robinson they are going in to battle with a street fighter who will fight dirty and go down fighting given the alternative is to spend years behind bars. Robinson is a very shrewd business man and will have records of all the corrupt practices that the company was part of, the processes being flouted and the management who were turning a blind eye. I’ve been to Nigeria a few times on business and am always left dumbfounded by how many dodgy things take place in the offices and are part of everyday life. Robinson spent years there and will have an extensive dossier. I think its too late now for Shell to be able to stop the likes of Robinson opening their mouths, with the use of money. Having made an enemy of him points again to seriously incompetent senior advisors within the company. Had no-one heard of ‘keep your friends close, keep your enemies even closer’? It will be a very slippery slope. Van Beurden should use a part of his obscene salary it invest in a good tin hat. I would also advise him to have a good summer clear out of all those who have been advising him on the matter, and of those who failed to stop this from becoming an issue as big, if not bigger, than the infamous reserves scandal. read more