The Disappearing $1.1 Billion Behind Shell, Eni Trial

Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Eni SpA are going to trial in Italy over bribery charges involving an oil field in Nigeria. Two things are unusual about the case. One is the sheer scale of the sum involved -- $1.1 billion. The other is that the defendants include Eni’s Chief Executive Officer Claudio Descalzi, the company’s former CEO and a former top executive at Shell. Hearings resume in Milan on May 14.

It was paid by the companies to the Nigerian government in 2011 for a license to drill in deep waters off the Nigerian coast. The license had been in dispute for years. It had originally been awarded in 1998 by the country’s military dictator, Sani Abacha, to Malabu Oil and Gas Ltd., a Lagos-based company connected to then-Petroleum Minister Dan Etete. Under successive governments, the license was canceled, awarded to Shell, and then awarded to Malabu again before the 2011 deal. Shell and Eni also paid the government about $200 million as a signature bonus -- a onetime fee charged by some oil-producing nations.