Royal Dutch Shell and Italian oil giant Eni, along with a number of their senior executives, will on Monday face charges of “aggravated international corruption” for their role in a $1.1bn deal for the controversial Nigerian deepwater oil block OPL 245.
No company as large as Royal Dutch Shell or such senior executives of a major oil company have ever stood trial for bribery offences.
Earlier on, confidential internal documents of Shell had suggested the oil giant capitalised on the 2011 presidential election to arm-twist the federal government into a “cheap” deal over the disputed OPL 245.
The international oil company also used an arbitration case it filed with the International Centre for the Settlement of International Disputes (ICSID), an organ of the World Bank, to blackmail the government into brokering truce with the original licensee, Malabu Oil and Gas Ltd.
OPL 245 was awarded on a discretionary basis to Malabu in 1998 by the Sani Abacha government, although it was later discovered that the beneficial owners included Abacha’s son, Mohammed, and Dan Etete, then-minister of petroleum.
“This trial should be a wake-up call to the oil industry. Some of the most senior executives of two of the biggest companies in the world could face prison sentences for a deal that was struck under their watch,” Barnaby Pace of global anti-corruption crusader Global Witness said.
“This trial is a clear signal that it is no longer business as usual for oil companies in Nigeria. It’s time justice was served,” said Lanre Suraju, executive director of Nigerian NGO, HEDA.
The prosecution by the Milan public prosecutor was triggered by a complaint filed in Autumn 2013 by Global Witness, The Corner House, Re:Common and Nigerian anti-corruption campaigner Dotun Oloko.
The case has also been investigated in Nigeria and the United States following the groups’ complaints. Public prosecutors in The Netherlands are also investigating the case.
