Eni-Nigeria, attorney general renounces the appeal: definitive acquittal

“This process must end today because it has no foundation.” The Milan public prosecutor’s office waives the appeal against the 15 defendants, 13 people and the companies Eni and Shell, accused of international corruption in the trial on the alleged $ 1.092 billion bribe that would have been paid by the two groups to win the concession from part of the government of Nigeria of the exploration rights on the Opl245 block. A decision that comes after the acquittal in first instance of March 17, 2021 – all acquitted “because the fact does not exist” – and that puts an end to the criminal trial. “There is no evidence of any relevant fact in this trial. The defendants who have suffered a 7-year trial have the right to see this situation cease immediately, which at this moment is contra legem with respect to the indications of formal regularity of the trial, of economics. trial, of reasonable duration “thunders in the courtroom the pg Celestina Gravina. Words that make the acquittal definitive for Eni’s CEO, Claudio Descalzi, his predecessor Paolo Scaroni, the former Minister of Oil of Nigeria, Dan Etete, as well as four former managers of Shell, former executives of Eni and some intermediaries. Among these also Roberto Casula, former head of Eni’s exploration division, Vincenzo Armanna, former vice president of Eni Nigeria, Ciro Antonio Pagano, at the time of the events managing director of Nae, Emeka Obi, lawyer who would have acted as intermediary in the operation, and Luigi Bisignani, also considered a mediator. The definitive acquittal of the two alleged intermediaries who had chosen the shortened procedure weighed on an ‘unusual’ choice. “In this process there is no proof of an agreement for a corruption, there is no proof of payment of a corrupt utility in this process. The prosecutor is unable to identify the utility that would have been the price of the corruption” then he falls back in “this operation should not have been carried out because it was illegal. But even this statement is based on that fundamentally neo-colonial attitude, other than the predatory colonialism of which the two oil companies that have made Nigeria’s wealth are accused” claims the public accusation that does not spare the deputy prosecutor Fabio De Pasquale, author of the appeal. “There is no evidence in this trial and the legal tracks of the trial marked by the Supreme Court correspond to the right of people in this country not to undergo criminal trials when the conditions of the law do not exist” underlines the pg who repeatedly emphasizes the “thinness and absolute insignificance of the elements “brought by the prosecutor to support the accusation of international corruption. In less than an hour the general prosecutor shatters the charge. The “lack of any new element to support the accusation”, an appeal that does not have the force “for a possible overturning of the principle of beyond reasonable doubt”, “incongruous and insufficient” profiles that return “various possible reconstructions that are the mirror of the absence of facts certain places at the basis of the accusation “leave no other possibility to the Attorney General: the trial ends here. A stop which the judges take note: only the appeal proposed by the civil party on any civil liability remains standing.