An Italian judge, Giusy Barbara yesterday said oil groups Eni and Royal Dutch Shell were fully aware that their purchase of a Nigerian oilfield in 2011, would result in corrupt payments to politicians and officials. Italy’s Eni and Shell bought the OPL 245 offshore field for about $1.3 billion in a deal that spawned one of the industry’s largest corruption scandals. It is alleged that about $1.1 billion of the total was siphoned to agents and middlemen. The Milan judge made the comment, while giving her written reasons for the September conviction of Nigerian Emeka Obi and Italian Gianluca Di Nardo. They were both middlemen in the OPL 245 deal in a corruption trial where they were jailed for four years. “The management of oil companies Eni and Shell were fully aware of the fact that part of the $1.092 billion paid would have been used to compensate Nigerian […]