Italy’s highest court on Thursday acquitted two Milan prosecutors accused of failing to disclose documents that could have strengthened the defence of Italian energy giant Eni in a high-profile international corruption case linked to Nigeria’s OPL 245 oil block.
The Court of Cassation, Italy’s supreme court, overturned an earlier ruling and cleared prosecutors Fabio De Pasquale and Sergio Spadaro, declaring that “the offence does not exist”, Reuters reported.
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The ruling brings to a close a legal dispute that emerged from the prosecution of Eni, Shell and several individuals over the acquisition of OPL 245, a Nigerian offshore oil block, in a deal valued at about $1.3 billion.
Background
Prosecutors had charged that executives of Eni and Shell involved in the Malabu deal knew that much of the $1.1 billion they deposited into an escrow account controlled by the Nigerian government would be disbursed as bribes.
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The oil companies consistently denied any wrongdoing before their eventual acquittal.
In Nigeria, a former Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mohammed Adoke, who brokered the deal as AGF, was acquitted in April 2024 of charges related to the Malabu saga.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) had accused Mr Adoke of fraudulently benefiting from the Malabu deal he helped broker as the then AGF in 2011. The settlement agreement was meant to cede ownership of OPL 245 to the oil giants Shell and Eni after a decades-long battle over the asset.
The court eventually cleared Mr Adoke in 2024 on the grounds of EFCC’s failure to provide evidence to support the case.
In March 2021, a Milan court acquitted Eni, Shell and all other defendants in what was widely described as the oil industry’s largest corruption trial. Prosecutors had alleged that a substantial portion of the funds paid for the oilfield was diverted as bribes to Nigerian officials and intermediaries.
The subsequent case against Mr De Pasquale and Mr Spadaro centred on allegations that they failed to file documents considered potentially favourable to the defence during the OPL 245 proceedings.
The court’s ruling on Thursday comes about two years after an Italian court in Brescia had convicted Messrs De Pasquale and Spadaro in 2024. Both prosecutors were convicted on charges arising from their conduct in the trial of oil giants Shell and Eni over the Malabu Oil saga in Nigeria.
At the time, the court handed down an eight-month suspended sentence to the prosecutors after finding them guilty of refusing to perform a duty by withholding documents that could have better helped the defence of Shell and Eni, which were eventually acquitted in the trial.
Shell, Eni and their managers were eventually acquitted in the Malabu case by an Italian court in Milan in March 2021.
“My colleague Fabio Federico and I are truly happy. This ruling brings justice after many years of suffering,” Reuters quoted Massimo Di Noia, one of the prosecutors’ lawyers, said after Thursday’s verdict.
He added that the prosecutor general before the Court of Cassation had also requested a full acquittal.
The decision reverses an October 2024 judgment by a court in Brescia, northern Italy, which upheld an eight-month prison sentence against the two prosecutors. The Brescia court had ruled that they failed in their duty to disclose documents that could have assisted the defence.
The investigation into the prosecutors began about five years ago.
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During the appeal proceedings in Brescia, Mr Spadaro rejected the allegations, insisting that “there was no refusal, there was no omission” and that the prosecutors had acted “according to conscience and the law.”
The Milan court that acquitted Eni and Shell in 2021 had criticised the prosecution for failing to include a video recorded by a former external lawyer for Eni among the trial documents, which it considered relevant to the case.
Under Italy’s judicial system, the Brescia court has jurisdiction over cases involving judges and prosecutors serving in the neighbouring city of Milan.
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