An Italian trial which sees Anglo Dutch firm Shell and Italy’s Eni face corruption charges over a $1.3bn Nigerian oil deal should act as a wake-up call to the oil industry, campaigners have said.
The court case starting on Monday has been brought by Milan prosecutors and centres on alleged bribes paid by the oil companies to win a licence in 2011 for a highly-valued field off the west African coast.
Both companies strongly reject any wrongdoing.
The pair each own half of the rights to the OPL-245 field, which is estimated to contain a vast 9.3bn barrels of crude which has still not been produced.
The Italian case against the firms alleges that they secured the licence by channelling $1.1bn of a $1.3bn settlement to the Nigerian government to a company linked to former Nigerian oil minister, Dan Etete, depriving ordinary Nigerians of the money.
Source : theguardian
No comments:
Post a Comment