The adventure of Paolo Scaroni's successor at the top of Eni is off to a bad start: the new CEO Claudio Descalzi, a few months after his appointment, is already invested in a heavy judicial investigation between Milan and London. The number one of the first Italian company by capitalization is being investigated by the Lombard prosecutor (together with the new head of the Exploration division of the oil giant, Roberto Casula) for the hypothesis of the crime of international corruption of politicians and bureaucrats in Nigeria.
The picture emerges from the papers with which yesterday the "Southwark Crown Court" of London, accepting an indication that it was unknown to have been made in recent weeks by the Italian investigating authority, seized in advance from the Nigerian intermediary Emeka Obi two Anglo deposits -Swiss of 110 and 80 million dollars: a fifth of the price of 1 billion and 90 million dollars that Eni in 2011 (with Paolo Scaroni as managing director and Descalzi as head of the Oil division) paid to the Lagos government to take over from Nigerian company Malabu the concession of Opl-245, initials of the oil exploration field whose concession in 1998 the then Nigerian oil minister Dan Etete assigned himself (under the name of the Malabu company) to the balance of 20 million.
Now London has convened a hearing for next Monday in which anyone who believes they have title to the 190 million seized will be able to intervene. So far Eni's position is the one crystallized in the assemblies and in a hearing of Scaroni in the Senate: "Total correctness, because as always we have not given a lira to anyone, we have not used intermediaries, and we have made the transaction only with the Nigerian State" .
