Conviction of Nigerian oil deal middlemen spells trouble for Shell and Eni on eve of major trial

Today two middlemen have been found guilty of corruption offences relating to Shell and Eni’s 2011 deal for one of Nigeria’s most promising oil licenses. The judgement was first reported by Reuters who cited a legal source.

The two middlemen Emeka Obi and Gianluca Di Nardo have been sentenced to four years jail time and confiscations of over €100 million. The pair had opted for a fast tracked trial for their role in the deal. The fast track process in Italian law offers a possible reduction in any sentence. A larger trial including Shell, Eni and 13 other defendants is ongoing. The prosecution will start presenting their evidence next Wednesday.

“Today sees the first men fall in the murky Malabu scandal. As Shell and Eni’s trial looms, time will tell whether it’s just the middlemen who pay the price for this epic crime against the Nigerian people. But one thing’s for certain: this judgment will send shivers down the corporate spines of the oil industry - and will surely alarm Shell and Eni employees and shareholders who have been repeatedly told that there was nothing amiss with the OPL 245 deal.” said Barnaby Pace, anti-corruption campaigner at Global Witness today.

The larger trial is remarkable for both including two of the world’s largest corporations and a number of Eni and Shell’s current and former senior managers. Those on trial include Eni’s current CEO Claudio Descalzi, former CEO Paolo Scaroni, and Chief Operations and Technology Officer Roberto Casula alongside four former Royal Dutch Shell staff members including Malcolm Brinded CBE, former Executive Director for Shell’s Upstream International operations, and two former MI6 agents employed by Shell.

According to prosecutors, Obi kept in frequent contact with executives at Eni attempting to broker the sale of the oil license from Malabu Oil and Gas, a company owned by former Nigerian Oil Minister Dan Etete. Prosecutors accused Obi and Di Nardo of intending to use commissions from the deal to pay bribes to Nigerian public officials and kickbacks to Eni and Shell managers.

For years, Shell had claimed that it only paid the Nigerian Government for the OPL 245 oil block but in 2017 Shell admitted it had dealt with Etete who had awarded the OPL 245 oil block to his own secretly owned company, Malabu, while serving as Oil Minister.

The case against Eni and Shell brought by the Milan Public Prosecutor alleges that $520 million from the deal was converted into cash and intended to be paid to the then Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, members of the government and other Nigerian government officials. The prosecutors further allege that money was also channelled to Eni and Shell executives with $50 million in cash delivered to the home of Eni’s Roberto Casula.

Lanre Suraju, Chairman of Nigerian NGO Human and Environmental Development Agenda said today "Today’s conviction vindicates what international and Nigerian civil society has claimed for years. OPL 245 was a corrupt deal.”

Antonio Tricarico of the Italian NGO Re:Common added “Milan public prosecutors were right to bravely take Eni and Shell and their top managers to trial in Italy. The time has come that the Italian government, as main shareholder of Eni, considers suspending all those managers involved in the case until the final judgement.”

"We hope to see the money from this deal swiftly returned to the Nigerian people.” said Nick Hildyard of Corner House.

Eni and Shell, together with their managers and other defendants have denied wrongdoing.