{Shell has admitted for the first time it dealt with a convicted money-launderer when negotiating access to a vast oil field in Nigeria.}<\/p>\n
It comes after emails were published showing Shell negotiated with Dan Etete, who was later convicted of money laundering in a separate case.<\/p>\n
Shell and an Italian oil company paid $1.3bn (\u00a31bn) to the Nigerian government for access to the field.<\/p>\n
Investigators claim $1.1bn was passed to a firm controlled by Mr Etete.<\/p>\n
Shell and the Italian firm ENI agreed a deal with the Nigerian government for the rights to exploit OPL 245, a prime oil block off the coast of the Niger Delta.<\/p>\n
The government passed on $1.1bn of the money to a company called Malabu, which was controlled by Mr Etete, according to Italian prosecutors.<\/p>\n
Documents filed by the Italian prosecutors claim that $466m of that sum was then laundered through bureau de change and passed on to the then president, Goodluck Jonathan, and members of his government.<\/p>\n
When questioned in the past, Shell has claimed that it only paid money to the Nigerian government, which took the form of a sum to settle the long-running legal dispute which had raged over the ownership of OPL 245.<\/p>\n
But a spokesman has now said Shell had engaged with Malabu and Etete before signing that deal.<\/p>\n
“Over the course of several years, Shell made repeated attempts to fully establish and understand Malabu’s ownership structure, including the exact role of Mr Etete in Malabu,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Over time it became clear to us that Etete was involved in Malabu and that the only way to resolve the impasse through a negotiated settlement was to engage with Etete and Malabu, whether we liked it or not. This was consistent with the Federal Government of Nigeria’s (FGN) position.<\/p>\n
“From the complex multi-party negotiations that followed, we knew the FGN would compensate Malabu to settle its claim on the block. We believe that the settlement was a fully legal transaction with the FGN,” he added.<\/p>\n
{{‘Changed its tune’}}<\/p>\n
The change comes after Global Witness and Finance Uncovered, two anti-corruption charities, published emails seen by the BBC which showed that Shell representatives were negotiating with Mr Etete a year before the deal was signed.<\/p>\n
One of the emails was copied to Shell’s chief executive at the time, Peter Voser, showing knowledge of Mr Etete’s involvement went right to the top at Shell.<\/p>\n
Rachel Owens, a campaigner at Global Witness, said: “Shell have always said that they only paid the Nigerian government. Today Shell has changed its tune.”<\/p>\n
At the time Shell struck the deal for OPL 245, it was under a deferred prosecution agreement with the Department of Justice in the US, settling a case under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for $30m.<\/p>\n
Under the terms of its agreement, it had to toughen up internal controls and stay in line with the US’ tough anti-corruption laws.<\/p>\n
Representatives of Peter Voser declined to comment. ENI said there was no credible evidence any of its staff were involved in wrongdoing.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for Goodluck Jonathan told the BBC that no charges or indictments have been brought or secured against the former president relating to this transaction and described the allegations as a “false narrative”.<\/p>\n
The BBC is still awaiting comment from Dan Etete, but he has previously denied any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{Shell has admitted for the first time it dealt with a convicted money-launderer when negotiating access to a vast oil field in Nigeria.} It comes after emails were published showing Shell negotiated with Dan Etete, who was later convicted of money laundering in a separate case. Shell and an Italian oil company paid $1.3bn (\u00a31bn) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[100],"byline":[160],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-33843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","tag-africa","byline-theophile-niyitegeka"],"bylines":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":3}],"contributors":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":3}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33843\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33843"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=33843"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=33843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}