ENI Eni Spa

By Christopher Alessi 

LONDON -- Royal Dutch Shell PLC is expected to face prosecution in the Netherlands on criminal charges connected to a 2011 Nigerian oil deal, the company said Friday, the latest twist in one of the oil industry's biggest bribery scandals.

The Anglo-Dutch oil giant said in a short statement that the Dutch public prosecutor's office was preparing to prosecute the company for charges "directly or indirectly" connected to a 2011 oil tender.

The Dutch Public Prosecution Service said that it had concluded through its investigation of Shell that there were prosecutable offenses. "We are not yet able to make any announcements about the further course of the case at the moment," a spokeswoman for the prosecution service said.

The likely prosecution stems from a $1.3 billion deal jointly made by Shell and Italian rival Eni SpA to develop an oil field in the waters off Nigeria's coast. The companies had acquired the field, known as OPL245, from a company owned by former Nigerian oil minister Dan Etete. The deal quickly fell apart and the field remains undeveloped.

Shell and Eni have denied wrongdoing in previous cases related to the deal.

Shell declined to comment beyond its statement on the expected Dutch case. In a statement Friday, Eni said it isn't under investigation by Dutch authorities and continues to deny all wrongdoing in connection with the 2011 deal.

The move by Dutch prosecutors comes on the heels of an ongoing corruption case against Shell and Eni being brought by Italian prosecutors related to the OPL245 deal. Italian officials alleged that Eni Chief Executive Claudio Descalzi and the other executives at both Shell and state-backed Eni knew most of the $1.3 billion the companies paid to the Nigerian government to acquire the drilling rights for OPL245 would be distributed as bribes.

Italian prosecutors also said , the Nigerian president at the time of the deal, received part of the kickbacks. Mr. Jonathan has denied involvement.

--Goodluck Jonathan

Shell and Eni denied wrongdoing in relation to allegations made in the Italian trial.

In December, as part of the continuing trial, a Milan judge stated that Shell and Eni were "fully aware" that part of their payments for the oil tender would be used for kickbacks to Nigerian politicians and officials. Prosecutors had alleged that around $1.1 billion of the $1.3 billion paid for the oil field was distributed to agents and middlemen.

The Italian judge's statement came three months after the court found two middlemen -- Nigerian Emeka Obi and Italian Gianluca Di Nardo -- guilty of international corruption in a connected case, sentencing them to four-year prison sentences.

The companies have also faced potential legal challenges in Nigeria, where the country's financial crimes watchdog has threatened to strip the companies of their claim to the oil field.

Write to Christopher Alessi at christopher.alessi@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 01, 2019 08:28 ET (13:28 GMT)

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