{"id":48030,"date":"2016-03-30T20:51:25","date_gmt":"2016-03-30T19:51:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/?p=48030"},"modified":"2016-03-30T20:51:25","modified_gmt":"2016-03-30T19:51:25","slug":"shell-linked-alleged-corruption-opl-245-awarded-abacha-etete","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/shell-linked-alleged-corruption-opl-245-awarded-abacha-etete\/","title":{"rendered":"Shell Linked To Alleged Corruption\u00a0In OPL 245 Awarded By Abacha, Etete"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">Oil giant Shell has been dragged into a corruption probe linked to a major offshore deal in Nigeria, the company confirmed <span class=\"aBn\" tabindex=\"0\" data-term=\"goog_512683137\"><span class=\"aQJ\">on Wednesday<\/span><\/span>. Following revelations in the Italian media, the Anglo-Dutch group said that its offices had been \u201cvisited\u201d by anti-fraud investigators.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cWe can confirm that representatives of the Dutch Financial Intelligence and Investigation Service (FIOD) and the Dutch Public Prosecutor recently visited Shell at its headquarters in The Hague,\u201d a spokesman said.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cThe visit was related to OPL 245, an offshore block in Nigeria that was the subject of a series of long-standing disputes with the Federal Government of Nigeria. Shell is cooperating with the authorities and is looking into the allegations, which it takes seriously.\u201d<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">Italian daily Corriere della Sera reported earlier that the Dutch investigators were working in collaboration with Italian prosecutors looking into Shell and Italian energy group ENI\u2019s 2011 acquisition of joint exploitation rights to OPL245, which is estimated to contain up to nine billion barrels of crude. Prosecutors in Milan have been investigating ENI executives involved in the deal since 2014.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">Under the licensing accord, ENI made a payment to the Nigerian government of $1.09 billion to secure joint ownership while Shell, which already owned a 40-percent stake, handed over $200 million. Most of this money was subsequently passed on to Malabu Oil and Gas, a company believed to be controlled by Chief Dan Etete, a former Nigerian Oil Minister. In an episode that has come to be regarded as emblematic of Nigeria\u2019s problems with corruption, Etete had awarded the rights to the block to Malabu in 1998, at a time when he was close to Nigeria\u2019s then-military dictator General Sani Abacha. The probe into ENI was triggered after an intermediary in the deal, Emeka Obi, sued Malabu in Britain\u2019s High Court and won an order that the company pay him $110 million in unpaid fees.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">ENI has always maintained that its actions in Nigeria have been beyond reproach and that all the money it had paid in Nigeria had gone directly to the government. Shell also insisted it had not been involved in any wrongdoing.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cShell attaches the greatest importance to business integrity,\u201d a spokesman said.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cIt\u2019s one of our core values and is a central tenet of the principles that govern the way we do business. All employees are expected to uphold these principles and failure to do so will result in consequences up to and including dismissal.\u201d<\/div>\n<div class=\"yj6qo ajU\">\n<div id=\":m5\" class=\"ajR\" style=\"text-align: justify;\" tabindex=\"0\" data-tooltip=\"Show trimmed content\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"ajT\" src=\"https:\/\/ssl.gstatic.com\/ui\/v1\/icons\/mail\/images\/cleardot.gif\" alt=\"\" \/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Related Posts generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Oil giant Shell has been dragged into a corruption probe linked to a major offshore deal in Nigeria, the company confirmed on Wednesday. Following revelations in the Italian media, the&hellip;<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Related Posts generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48031,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Shell Linked To Alleged Corruption\u00a0In OPL 245 Awarded By Abacha, Etete - Pointblank News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/shell-linked-alleged-corruption-opl-245-awarded-abacha-etete\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Shell Linked To Alleged Corruption\u00a0In OPL 245 Awarded By Abacha, Etete - Pointblank News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Oil giant Shell has been dragged into a corruption probe linked to a major offshore deal in Nigeria, the company confirmed on Wednesday. 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