Italy’s Court of Cassation, the country’s highest court, has acquitted two Milan prosecutors accused of failing to disclose documents in a corruption case involving energy companies Eni and Shell over Nigeria’s OPL 245 oil block.
The court on Thursday overturned an earlier ruling and cleared Fabio De Pasquale and Sergio Spadaro, stating that “the offence does not exist,” according to Reuters.
The case was linked to long-running legal proceedings over the controversial $1.3 billion acquisition of the OPL 245 offshore oil block in Nigeria, involving Eni, Shell, and several individuals.
Prosecutors had earlier alleged that officials involved in the deal knew that funds placed in an escrow account controlled by the Nigerian government would ultimately be used for bribery payments. Both companies consistently denied wrongdoing and were later acquitted.
In Nigeria, former Attorney-General of the Federation, Mohammed Adoke, who played a central role in brokering the 2011 settlement, was also cleared of related corruption charges in April 2024 after the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission failed to substantiate its case.
The OPL 245 matter has been one of the most closely watched international corruption cases involving Nigeria’s oil sector. In 2021, a Milan court acquitted Eni, Shell, and other defendants in what was described as one of the largest corruption trials in the global energy industry.
The separate case against the two prosecutors stemmed from claims that they failed to submit documents that could have supported the defence during the trial.
Although a lower court in Brescia had previously convicted them and issued suspended sentences, the Supreme Court has now overturned that decision, ending years of legal proceedings.
The prosecutors’ lawyer welcomed the ruling, saying it brought relief after years of legal and personal difficulty, while noting that the public prosecutor had also supported acquittal.
The dispute forms part of wider judicial proceedings in Italy related to how evidence was handled during the OPL 245 trial, which examined allegations of corruption in the acquisition of the Nigerian oil asset
