Nigeria’s Compensation Request Against Eni, Shell Dismissed by Italian Court
In this Friday, Feb. 23, 2018 file photo, an employee walks by banners with name and sign of energy firm Eni at Strovolos area in capital Nicosia, Cyprus. 
In July, criminal proceedings against multi-national petroleum giants Shell and Eni were dropped, clearing the companies and their managers, including Eni Chief Executive Claudio Descalzi, and ending one of the biggest cases of alleged corruption in the oil industry.On Friday, an appeals court in Milan, Italy, rejected Nigeria’s $1.092 billion compensation request against energy groups Eni and Shell in civil proceedings.”We are pleased that these civil proceedings have been dismissed,” said a Shell representative, adding: “This follows the Milan criminal tribunal’s finding that there was no case to answer for Shell or its former employees when they were fully acquitted in 2021, a decision that was upheld in July 2022, when criminal proceedings ended.”In 2011, Eni and Shell acquired the OPL 245 offshore oil field in a $1.3 billion deal. This lead to a legal dispute with the firms being accused of using $1.1 billion of the total amount as bribes for politicians and intermediaries.After the end of the civil proceedings, Nigerian representative declared that the African country was considering appealing the decision at Italy’s top administrative court.The Eni and Shell case is one in a row of cases of alleged corruption against multi-national corporations in Africa. Earlier in November, the British subsidiary of Glencore was fined £280 million for seven cases of bribery in Africa between 2011 and 2016. NJ Ayuk, executive chairman of the South African energy legal group African Energy Chamber, deemed the court’s decision insufficient and called for personal accounting for the firm’s executives.In 2014, a legal process was opened against DEFEX, a Spanish state-owned company that is accused of bribery and money-laundering in several countries including Angola and Cameroon. Corruption allegations have also been made against British American Tobacco, concerning its Zimbabwe activity.
