Posts Tagged ‘Malcolm Brinded’

19 SEPTEMBER 2018: By Prince Okafor With Agency Report

An Italian court has concluded plans to deliver its first verdict on the trial of top Shell and Eni executives, over alleged corruption in the controversial Malabu scandal tomorrow in Milan, Italy.

The Italian prosecutors alleged that $1.1 billion from the deal didn’t come into Nigeria where the oil field OPL 245 is located, but to accounts belonging to former Minister of Petroleum, Mr. Dan Etete.

The Italian judge, it was learnt will decide, for the first time, whether $1.1 billion of the sum paid was siphoned in bribes to win the license to the field. read more

MILAN, Sept 18 (Reuters) – Oil majors Shell and Eni will be carefully monitoring a first ruling this week by a Milan judge in one of the energy industry’s biggest corruption scandals for clues to what might be round the corner for them.

The two companies are embroiled in a long-running graft case revolving around the purchase in 2011 of one of Africa’s biggest oilfields – Nigeria’s OPL 245 – for about $1.3 billion.

The case, which involves Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi and four former Shell managers including one-time Shell Foundation Chairman Malcolm Brinded, has spawned legal cases spanning several countries and is expected to drag on for months. read more

The trial starts this week, with defendants that include former Shell Vice President for sub-Saharan Africa Peter Robinson, and former company board member Malcolm Brinded.

LONDON—Senior executives from oil giants Royal Dutch Shell and Eni are facing corruption charges in Milan over a $1.3 billion deal for a huge African oil field.

Italian prosecutors allege that $1.1 billion from the deal didn’t go to Nigeria, where the oil field OPL 245 is located, but to accounts belonging to former oil lawmaker Dan Etete. Etete is accused of subsequently distributing hundreds of millions of dollars to others as bribes, including to former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan. read more

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

In evidence to the Committee, Shell stated that neither Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) nor Royal Dutch Shell (RDS) “is or was at any point in the past involved in OPL 245”. But a cache of leaked internal Shell emails tells a very different story. Far from being “uninvolved”, RDS — the London-registered company at the pinnacle of the Shell group — appears to have the controlling mind behind the important decisions relating to Shell’s involvement in OPL 245.

BY SAHARAREPORTERS, NEW YORK, SEP 11, 2018

Anti-corruption groups are calling for an urgent inquiry into what would appear to be highly misleading statements made by Shell in evidence to an investigation by the 2012 Ad Hoc Committee of the House of Representatives into the corrupt OPL 245 oil bloc deal.

In evidence to the Committee, Shell stated that that neither Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) nor Royal Dutch Shell (RDS) “is or was at any point in the past involved in OPL 245”.

But a cache of leaked internal Shell emails tells a very different story. Far from being “uninvolved”, RDS — the London-registered company at the pinnacle of the Shell group — appears to have the controlling mind behind the important decisions relating to Shell’s involvement in OPL 245. 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

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

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

I genuinely believe that Ben van Beurden is a decent man and appears to have a good heart, but his weakness in dealing with the army of internal rogue corrupt dictators and getting control of the HR mafia has already cost him his legacy.

MORE SHELL BLOG COMMENTS ABOUT THE BILL CAMPBELL ARTICLE: Stunned and outraged by Shell’s denouncement of Peter Robinson

Yet Another Concerned Employee
 
Behind the glossy facade of its brightly coloured filling stations and shiny reflective glass towers, Shell is truly a dark malevolent force. It is not only the Church of the poisoned mind, but also home to the parasitic mind which snatches thoughts from others and presents them as its own. Experience and being correct are not recognised, only ‘Process’. Many, through either bitter experience, incompetence or ignorance have learned to hide behind process and can no longer think for themselves. Merit is trodden under heel into the mud. Often one bad decision after another results in a predictable squandering of shareholders’ money, not by the millions or tens of millions of dollars, but by the hundreds of millions of dollars. Lessons learned are written down then forgotten as the machine moves forwards. This is rewarded by large bonuses. Reality plays little part in the daily running of the business, the public image of the ‘Brand’ must be protected at all cost. read more

Shell and Eni paid $1.3 billion for oil rights in Nigeria. Whether the money was mostly a bribe is at the heart of one of the industry’s most dramatic criminal cases

EXTRACTS

A top oil executive walked into the marble lobby of an exclusive Milan hotel on a chilly winter night. His dinner date was a former Nigerian oil minister offering to sell one of Africa’s biggest untapped oil discoveries.

Eight years later, the question of whether the $1.3 billion paid for the license to that prized oil field was mostly a bribe is at the heart of one of the biggest bribery scandals the oil industry has ever seen.

Shell executives, including Malcolm Brinded, Shell’s global exploration and production chief at the time of the deal, will also be tried on those charges, as well as both companies. Eni and Shell both deny wrongdoing, saying they simply paid the government and didn’t know the money would be used for … read more

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

(BACKGROUND INFORMATION ABOUT SHELL’S EPIC 25 YEAR FEUD WITH JOHN DONOVAN – which puts the extracts below in overall context.)

Extract below from pages 55, 56, 57 & 58 consisting of an informed damning judgement (in June 2004) on Shell management by Dr. John Huong a Shell Production Geologist. He blew the whistle internally on the reserves fraud that resulted in the forced merger of Shell Transport and Trading and Royal Dutch Petroleum, into Royal Dutch Shell Plc in 2005. He was fired for being a person man of high integrity. Eight companies in the Shell group jointly sued him for defamation, but eventually, six years later, settled that action along with his claim against Shell for wrongful dismissal.

Extract Begins

CONTENT OF A LEAFLET PUBLISHED ON OUR WEBSITE AND CIRCULATED IN JUNE 2004 AT THE SHELL CENTRE, LONDON. ALL EXTRACTS FROM COMMENTS MADE BY DR. JOHN HUONG

“I will supply for publication further informed comment and revelations in the run up to Shell’s AGM on 28 June. It will include examples of the toxic combination of arrogance, greed, dishonesty, and blatant disregard for all ethical norms by Shell Management, that has culminated in the current shame heaped upon the once proud Shell name.” read more

Snippets from an article originally published by Dutch magazine Vrij Nederland on 9 November 2017. Translated from Dutch to English by Iefke Prins.

Clearly, Shell has played a crucial role in criminal activities; ‘the most important decisions were made at the headquarters in Den Haag’; Top management at Shell looked the other way and did not want any contact with Etete’; In the early morning of 17 February 2016, thirty tax authority investigators together with thirty Italian colleagues raided the Shell headquarters at the request of the Italian prosecutor. In the directors’ offices, 1800 pages of documents and e-mails were seized.; According to the e-mails, Shell was very much aware that Etete was corrupt.; On the day of the raid on Shell’s offices, the company’s CEO Ben van Beurden’s phone was wiretapped by Dutch police. In a leaked conversation with CFO Simon Henry, he mentioned ‘unhelpful e-mails’ from Copleston, who speculated ‘who would get paid what’. Van Beurden chalked up the conversations as ‘pub talk’, which he called ‘foolish’. He also decided that it would be better if the raid would not be reported to shareholders.; He instructed CFO Henry to ‘not voluntarily say anything other than what’s being asked’ to the authorities.; Shell’s behavior is all the more striking because the company was already under enhanced control by US authorities because of another Nigerian corruption case.

FULL ARTICLE BELOW

Bags filled with Naira’s were divided amongst politicians. Photo: Shuttershock.

A scheme to purchase an oil field from a corrupt Nigerian former minister of oil was devised and approved at Royal Shell’s headquarters in The Hague. The complete file landed on journalist Harm Ede Botje’s desk. A reconstruction.

A raid on Shell’s headquarters, two former UK Secret Service MI6 agents negotiating with a corrupt Nigerian former minister of oil affairs on behalf of Shell, a former Russian ambassador intermediary in talks with the FBI, a fugitive Nigerian ex-Minister of Justice, millions of dollars in kickbacks for employees of the Italian oil company Eni, bags of Nigerian Nairas being divided among politicians and businessmen. They seem the right ingredients for a riveting thriller, but these events actually happened. read more

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

By way of background information, my company, Don Marketing, did not know that the new Shell executive (AJL) we were dealing with was intent on setting up his own business from inside Shell and was busy funnelling Shell projects to a company with whom he had a special relationship. AJL recorded in his diary his intention to retire from Shell at the age of 35. AJL had already engaged in a throughly corrupt scheme involving other Shell managers and Shell’s legal department who together conspired to deceive and steal Intellectual Property from innocent participants in the tender process for a major Shell contract. Some 36 companies wrongly thought they were participating in an honest Shell tender and invested time and resources when in fact they never had a chance of winning the contract. It was awarded to a company that never ran in the race. The one with whom AJL had a special relationship. I supplied full information about the corrupt tender process to Malcolm Brinded. He inexplicably gave his full support to AJL. Hence two subsequent decades of acrimony that have cost Shell billions and put Shell in a position where it has to put up with repeated publication of the extremely damaging facts. There is no libel if what is being stated is true. In the decades before AJL was appointed, we had a mutually very successful relationship with Shell. read more

Shell employees at a borehole in Nigeria in 2002 where the oil comes from the ground and flows via pipes to terminals. Photo: Hollandse Hoogte / Sven Torfinn

…the crimes that would have taken place under the responsibility of Shell were carried out by Malcom Brinded, Peter Robinson, Guy Colegate and John Coplestone between autumn 2009 and 2 May 2014.

Translated from an article published in Dutch language on 20 Dec 2017 by Het Financieele Dagblad. 

Shell is being charged with corruption in Nigeria an Italian judge decided this afternoon. The lawsuit starts in Milan on 5 March.

In addition to Shell, the Italian oil and gas company Eni and its current CEO, Claudio Descalzi, and a number of former Shell directors are also being put on trial. The verdict follows after months of preliminary investigation and a number of hearings in Milan. read more

The two oil giants and key directors are to stand trial in what may be one of the biggest corruption cases in history. It relates to bribes paid in Nigeria for the purchase of an offshore oil block.

A judge in Milan has ordered Eni, Shell and current and former Eni directors to stand trial on accusations of corruption in the 2011 purchase of the OPL245 oil block in Nigeria estimated to hold 9 billion barrels of crude.

The CEO of Italian energy concern Eni since 2014 Claudio Descalzi, and his predecessor Paolo Scaroni are among 11 individuals indicted over the alleged bribes paid to secure the oil license for $1.3 billion (€1.09 billion).

The Italian company denied wrongdoing: “Eni’s Board of Directors has reaffirmed its confidence that the company was not involved in alleged corrupt activities in relation to the transaction,” according to a statement issued by the company on Wednesday. read more

By City & Finance Reporter for the Daily Mail: 21:50, 20 December 2017 

Oil majors Shell and Eni, and ex-bosses at both firms, are due to stand trial in Italy over alleged corruption over an £800million field in Nigeria.

Former Shell director Malcolm Brinded, 64, who was given a CBE in 2002 for services to the oil and gas industry, is among 15 accused, including Eni’s chief executive Claudio Descalzi.

Prosecutors say a large part of around £800million paid by Shell and Eni in 2011 was distributed as bribes.  read more