Italy’s highest court has acquitted two prosecutors who led the failed corruption case against energy giants Eni and Shell over Nigeria’s controversial OPL 245 oil block, closing another chapter in one of Africa’s biggest and longest-running oil scandals.
The Court of Cassation overturned the convictions of Milan prosecutors Fabio De Pasquale and Sergio Spadaro, ruling that they committed no offence by allegedly withholding evidence during the prosecution of Eni, Shell and several former executives over the 2011 acquisition of OPL 245.
The decision marks the latest legal twist in a saga that has stretched across courtrooms in Europe and Africa for more than a decade and involved allegations of bribery, political influence and the control of one of Nigeria’s richest untapped oil assets.
The OPL 245 dispute centres on a 2011 deal in which Eni and Shell paid about $1.3 billion to acquire rights to the offshore oil block, believed to contain an estimated 9 billion barrels of crude oil.
Italian prosecutors had argued that a large portion of the money ultimately found its way to politicians, government officials and intermediaries. Eni and Shell consistently denied wrongdoing, insisting the payment was made to the Nigerian government.
