You know it is going to be a bad day when you company is featured on the front page of the Wall Street Journal for allegations of bribery and corruption. That is what Shell and the Italian energy company ENI recently faced when there was a report of their upcoming criminal trial for making a payment that may or may not have been a $1.3bn bribe for their joint rights to develop an oil field in Nigeria. The case turns on allegations that Claudio Descalzi, CEO of ENI, and high-level Shell officials approved an arrangement that allowed them to pay the government while knowing most of the money would be transferred to a company controlled by Dan Etete—a former Nigerian oil minister, who the executives knew “would pay off Nigerian officials and send kickbacks to Eni executives.”
