An Italian court has ruled that oil giants Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Eni SPA are not to blame in a bribery case involving a years-old Nigerian oil field, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Shell, Eni and Eni’s CEO Claudio Descalzi have been on trial for years in the infamous OPL 245 case. Shell, Eni, Descalzi and others have been accused of knowing that more than $ 1.1 billion of the $ 1 billion, 3 billion deposited a decade ago in a custody account controlled by the Nigerian government would end up being used as a bribe to secure oil exploration rights.
A UK judge dismissed a similar case about the same deal in their courts last year.
Eni and Shell have always said they knew nothing about bribes, although two intermediaries at Shell and Eni were found guilty of corruption years ago in a separate OPL 245 trial.
The legal battle that lasted for years in the UK and Italy is now finally behind the big oil companies.
Nigeria hoped to raise a billion from the lawsuit – a necessary unexpected gain, since OPL 245, for the most part, was never developed.
But the battle between Shell and Nigeria is barely over, after a Dutch court ruled in January that Nigerian citizens could sue the oil company for oil spills in the area.
Shortly after that decision, Shell CEO Ben van Beurden said he would seriously analyze his operations on the ground in Nigeria after being hit by chronic problems of theft, illegal refining and sabotage in the Niger Delta – the probable cause of several leaks now can be processed.
Shell continues to operate around 340 oil wells across Nigeria.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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