Nigeria has for the fifth time lost its case in the long-running OPL 245 court case in Italy.
Yesterday, the Appeal Court in Milan, Italy, rejected the country’s request for $1.1 billion compensation from Shell and Eni, the two energy giants that bought the oil block off Malabu Oil and Gas Ltd in 2011.
The Nigerian government had alleged that there was corruption in the deal, leading to a number of criminal trials in Nigeria and Italy.
The Milan Appeal Court rejected Nigeria’s civil claims and promised to make its reasons public within 90 days.
“We are pleased that these civil proceedings have been dismissed. This follows the Milan criminal tribunal’s finding that there was no case to answer for Shell or its former employees when they were fully acquitted in 2021, a decision that was upheld in July 2022, when criminal proceedings ended,” Shell said in an emailed comment to the Reuters news agency.
In the first case, in which the government of…
Source: Thisday Newspaper
