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Royal Dutch Shell, Italian oil giant Eni and a number of senior executives at the two firms face trial in Milan on Monday over corruption charges relating to a $1.1bn (£800m) deal for a Nigerian oil block.
The Milan public prosecutor alleges that $520m from a 2011 deal to buy rights to a vast oil block off Nigeria’s coast was converted into cash and intended to be paid to the then Nigerian resident Goodluck Jonathan, members of the government and other Nigerian government officials.
BY GLOBAL WITNESS: DEC 20, 2017
Royal Dutch Shell and Italian oil giant Eni have been ordered to stand trial in Milan on charges of aggravated international corruption for their role in a 2011 $1.1bn deal for Nigerian oil block OPL 245. Mrs Justice Barbara handed down the ruling today. The judge set March 5 as the date for the trial to begin.
Eni’s current CEO Claudio Descalzi, former CEO Paolo Scaroni, Chief Operations and Technology Officer Roberto Casula were also ordered to face trial alongside four Royal Dutch Shell staff members including Malcolm Brinded CBE, former Executive Director for Upstream International and two former MI6 agents employed by Shell.
: Lionel Faull and Idris Akinbajo
A British judge ruled on Friday that up to $85 million from the notorious Malabu oil deal should be returned to the Nigerian government.
This is the first money to be successfully recovered from the $1.1 billion sale of the fantastically rich offshore oil block, OPL245, that has been mired in corruption allegations and legal trench warfare for years.
The sale, which was brokered by the then-government of Goodluck Jonathan in 2011, supposedly resolved a long running contest for the block between oil giant Shell and shelf company Malabu, beneficially owned by former Nigerian oil minister Dan Etete.
By Idris Akinbajo and Samuel Ogundipe: 10 April 2017
After repeated denials in various countries, Anglo-Dutch oil giant, Royal Dutch Shell, on Monday finally admitted it had foreknowledge that the $1.3 billion itself and ENI paid to Nigerian government for the OPL 245 oil block licence would ultimately be used to settle convicted former Minister of Petroleum, Dan Etete.
“Over time, it became clear to us that Etete was involved in Malabu and that the only way to resolve the impasse through a negotiated settlement was to engage with Etete and Malabu, whether we liked it or not,” The New York Times quoted Andy Norman, a spokesperson for Shell, as saying in an email Monday.
In a huge u-turn, the company has now admitted it knew Mr Etete was involved.Top executives at Shell knew that money they paid as part of a $1.3bn deal for a huge Nigerian oil field would end up in the hands of a convicted money launderer who awarded the asset to his own company when he was oil minister of the country.
Emails seen by The Independent and reported by anti-corruption campaign groups Global Witness and Finance Uncovered, show senior bosses at the UK’s biggest company had been informed that hundreds of millions of dollars could flow through former oil minister Dan Etete to be paid in bribes to former President Goodluck Jonathan and other political figures.
11 April 2017
Shell has admitted for the first time it dealt with a convicted money-launderer when negotiating access to a vast oil field in Nigeria. It comes after emails were published showing Shell negotiated with Dan Etete, who was later convicted of money laundering in a separate case. Shell and an Italian oil company paid $1.3bn (£1bn) to the Nigerian government for access to the field. Investigators claim $1.1bn was passed to a firm controlled by Mr Etete.
Shell and the Italian firm ENI agreed a deal with the Nigerian government for the rights to exploit OPL 245, a prime oil block off the coast of the Niger Delta.
BY SAHARAREPORTERS, NEW YORK APR 10, 2017
Global oil giant, Shell, has been forced to admit that it knew it was paying bribes to Nigerian government officials during the transaction for OPL 245. Shell, which had consistently denied wrongdoing, on Monday, admitted that the transaction lacked fidelity.
On Sunday, Global Witness and Finance Uncovered exposed freshly leaked emails showing that Shell knowingly participated in a massive bribery scheme for one of Africa’s most valuable oil blocks, which robbed Nigerians of $1.1billion.
Shell was last night accused of taking part in ‘one of the worst corruption scandals the industry has ever seen’ after buying an oil field in Nigeria.
The Anglo-Dutch giant joined forces with Italian rival Eni to acquire the site off the coast of the West African country for £1billion – giving it access to 9bn barrels of oil, worth nearly half a trillion dollars at today’s prices. But leaked documents suggest it knew much of this cash would fall into the hands of a convicted money launderer and be used to bribe government officials.
Corruption watchdogs alleged Monday that Shell executives knew that money earmarked for a controversial oil deal was being used to bribe senior Nigerian officials, a claim rebuffed by the petroleum giant.
The allegations by Global Witness and Finance Uncovered refer to the 2011 purchase by oil giants Shell and Eni of OPL245, an offshore oil block estimated to hold 9 billion barrels of crude, for $1.3 billion.
The deal saw the Nigerian government act as an intermediary between the oil majors and Malabu Oil and Gas, a Nigerian company allegedly controlled by former petroleum minister Dan Etete.
Published: Monday, 10 April 2017 18:54
When Shell was buying the OPL 245 oil field in Nigeria for US$1.3 billion, its executives knew that 1.1 billion will land in the pocket of former petroleum minister and convicted money launderer, Dan Etete, media reported Monday.
The BBC claims to have seen emails obtained by anti-corruption charities, Global Witness and Finance Uncovered, which say that Shell representatives were negotiating with Etete for a year before the deal was finalized.
A trove of internal Shell emails seen by the Financial Times and dated between 2008 and 2010 leave no doubt that senior people within the company knew that most of the $1.3bn paid together with Eni for OPL 245 was destined for Malabu, and that much of the money would end up with Mr Etete and associates. Shell had previously said only that the money was paid to a Nigerian government escrow account.
In the intercepted phone call with Mr Henry, Mr van Beurden acknowledged Shell’s own investigation uncovered “unhelpful” and “stupid” email exchanges among former UK intelligence agents hired by the company to help negotiate the OPL 245 deal.
The chair of parliament’s international development committee has called for the government to make clear what it is doing to investigate a $1.3 billion oil deal signed by Shell and Italian oil company ENI in Nigeria.
The call comes after BuzzFeed News and the Italian newspaper Il Sore 24 Ore published “Shell Shocks”, a cache of emails and court documents revealing that Shell top executives signed off on a deal with full knowledge that most of the money would go to Malabu, a company connected to a former Nigerian oil minister, Dan Etete.
Top executives at Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A, RDS.B) last year were worried that a controversial Nigerian oil deal may have violated an agreement with the U.S. Justice Department and would prompt an investigation, according to a recorded phone call between CEO Ben van Beurden and Simon Henry, the company’s CFO at the time.
In the call, van Beurden said he was worried that Shell’s own investigators had discovered internal emails that could cast the company in a negative light and widen the investigation by drawing in U.S. authorities; the call was recorded and has now been made public.
Nigeria: Malabu Scandal – Jonathan Must Have Gotten $200 Million, Middleman Tells FBI, OthersBy Samuel Ogundipe
Former President Goodluck Jonathan probably received as much as $200 million to approve the controversial $1.3 billion sale of OPL 245 oil field, Italian prosecutors said in court documents.
The documents, which were extracts of a thorough investigation by Italian authorities into the deal, also confirmed that Shell and ENI knew a good chunk of the $1.3 billion will be disbursed as kickbacks to Nigerian politicians, yet went ahead with the deal.
The findings were obtained by BuzzFeed and Italian business newspaper, Il Sole 24 Ore. BuzzFeed released its own version earlier today.
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Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
MORE DETAILS:
MORE DETAILS: After a solicitor acting for Shell threatened to make the litigation "drawn out and difficult" with the intention of draining the resources of a financially weaker opponent, my late father (Alfred Donovan) and I decided to mount a wide-ranging campaign as a counter-measure. We jointly founded the Shell Corporate Conscience Pressure Group, which nearly 15% of Shell UK retailers joined. We regularly conducted ethical surveys involving up to 1500 Shell petrol stations. All responses were opened and authenticated by an independent solicitor who supplied Affidavits confirming the results. In whole page announcements in trade magazines (examples above) we challenged Shell to commission and publish the resuits of independent research asking the same questions and offering respondents GUARANTEED anonymity. Shell never took up the invitation. Instead it asked the UK Advertising Standards Authority to investigate our Shell surveys. No problems were found. The head-cut image of Alfred Donovan appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal. 
See our link list of over 500 articles by the FT, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Bloomberg, Forbes, Dow Jones Newswires, New York Times, CNBC etc, plus UK House of Commons Select Committee Hansard records, information on U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission website etc. all containing references to our Shell focussed websites, or our website founders Alfred and John Donovan. Includes TV documentary features in English and German, newspaper and magazine articles, radio interviews, newsletters etc. Plus academic papers, Stratfor intelligence reports and UK, U.S. and Australian state/parliamentary publications, also citing our Shell websites. Click on this link to see the entire list, all in date order with a link to an index of over 100 books also containing references to our websites and/or our activities.
John Donovan, the website owner
A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
Ben Chapman
