Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Eni SpA are going to trial in Italy over bribery charges involving an oil field in Nigeria. Two things are unusual about the case. One is the sheer scale of the sum involved — $1.1 billion. The other is that the defendants include Eni’s Chief Executive Officer Claudio Descalzi, the company’s former CEO and a former top executive at Shell. The trial begins Monday in Milan.
1. What was the $1.1 billion for?
It was paid by the companies to the Nigerian government in 2011 for a license to drill in deep waters off the Nigerian coast. The license had been in dispute for years. It had originally been awarded in 1998 by the country’s military dictator, Sani Abacha, to Malabu Oil and Gas Ltd., a Lagos-based company connected to then-Petroleum Minister Dan Etete. Under successive governments, the license was canceled, awarded to Shell, and then awarded to Malabu again before the 2011 deal. Shell and Eni also paid the government about $200 million as a signature bonus — a onetime fee charged by some oil-producing nations.
By John Donovan
Bill Campbell comments on OPL 245 
By John Donovan
By John Donovan
To its credit Shell has not given in to the subsequent money demands, but neither has it apparently reported the matter to the Irish Police. One can see the difficulty. How do you go about asking the Irish police to investigate a blackmail plot over free alcohol worth over €35,000 given to the Irish Police accused of being “Shell’s Cops” and acting brutally towards people protesting against the controversial project?
