MILAN – Italian energy giant Eni yesterday said it has filed a request with a court here to pay US$14 million (RM57.68 million) to settle an investigation into corruption in Congo-Brazzaville levied at the company and one of its managers.
According to Italian media, the probe was launched in 2017, and relates to the payment of suspected bribes when oil licences in Congo-Brazzaville were being renewed in 2015.
To secure renewal, Eni was accused of agreeing to sell parts of its licence to a shell corporation maintained by Congolese public officials.
In a statement, the firm said the request was not an admission of guilt, “but an initiative aimed at avoiding the continuation (of) a judicial process that would entail further expenditure of resources from Eni and all the involved parties”.
The court reducing the alleged offence from international corruption to undue inducement paved the way for a settlement, it said.
Eni refused to divulge to AFP the name of the manager implicated.
The news comes a day after an Italian court cleared Eni and Shell of charges related to a major oil exploration deal in Nigeria, in which US$1.1 billion allegedly ended up in the pockets of corrupt politicians and middlemen.
Among the 13 individual defendants was Eni’s chief executive, Claudio Descalzi, for whom prosecutors sought an eight-year prison term.
Descalzi was targeted by another probe by a Milan court in 2019, accused of not disclosing a potential conflict of interest regarding Eni’s activities in Congo-Brazzaville – an allegation dismissed by the company as “without any foundation”. – AFP, March 19, 2021
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