Italian prosecutors had put the oil companies, and some of their executives on criminal trial over allegations of corruption in the transfer of the oil block from Malabu Oil and Gas Ltd. to Shell and Eni for a consideration of $1.1 billion, in addition to the payment of $200 million as signature bonus to the Nigerian government.
The Nigerian government has appealed the judgment of an appeal court in Italy which rejected its $1.1 billion compensation request against Eni, Shell, and others in a civil proceeding over the OPL 245 affair.
Italian prosecutors had put the oil companies, and some of their executives on criminal trial over allegations of corruption in the transfer of the oil block from Malabu Oil and Gas Ltd. to Shell and Eni for a consideration of $1.1 billion, in addition to the payment of $200 million as signature bonus to the Nigerian government.
After years of trial which the government of Nigeria joined as an injured party, the court of Milan ruled in March 2021 that the prosecutors did not establish any proof of corruption, discharging and acquitting all the defendants.
In July, the attorney general of Italy terminated the appeal against the judgment of the court of Milan on grounds that it was baseless.
Nevertheless, Nigeria pursued the civil case in which it claimed to have lost money in the deal.
Delivery judgement in November 2022, an appellate court in Italy struck out the case.
However, a source familiar with the case told SaharaReporters that the Nigerian government has filed an appeal at the Supreme Court.
“Surprisingly, the Eni-Nigeria legal case opens, the one in which the Italian company was accused by the Milan prosecutor of having paid, together with Shell, 1.3 billion dollars for the immense OPL 245 oil exploration field in Nigeria, but the money had then gone to Nigerian public officials and politicians and international mediators. The charge of international corruption had been rejected in 2021 with acquittal for all in the first instance,” he said.
“Then, the Attorney General of Milan had decided - a more unique than rare fact - not to appeal. Thus, the acquittal became definitive. But now the Federal Republic of Nigeria has reopened the case. He has given a mandate to the lawyer Lucio Lucia to appeal to the Supreme Court, at least as regards the civil effects of the criminal sentence. The acquittals for the crime of international corruption cannot be called into question, but the refusal to grant compensation requested by Nigeria from Eni and Shell, equal to 1 billion and 92 million dollars that the African state had requested for OPL 245.
“The judge of appeal, who was unable to rule on the criminal charges due to the decision of the Attorney General, however had to continue the judgment on the civil requests of compensation and he denied them. Now, however, the appeal is asking the Supreme Court to cancel that sentence, for two reasons. The first is that the judge of the Court of Appeal pronounced his sentence by evaluating the evidence with the (criminal) criterion which condemns only when he considers the guilt proven beyond any reasonable doubt.
“The second reason for the appeal is that the appeal sentence resumed in 35 small pages, only the arguments of the first instance sentence, without even addressing the reasons presented in the appeal of the civil party, which in 150 pages had set out all the elements of evidence which, according to the lawyer representing Nigeria, had been underestimated or ignored in the first instance judgment. Now the Cassation will decide whether to reopen the trial, referring it to a civil appeal judge, as foreseen by the Cartabia reform.”
Shell and Eni had paid a total of $1.3 billion to Nigeria’s account at JP Morgan — $801 million for Malabu, the original OPL 245 allottees, and $210 million as signature bonus to the Nigerian government.
However, Nigeria sued JP Morgan Bank for $1.7 billion for allegedly failing in its “duty of care” when it transferred the payments by Shell and Eni to Malabu Oil and Gas Ltd. between 2011 and 2013.
But in June 2022, it lost the $1.7 billion claim against JP Morgan Chase Bank.
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