Former ENI CEO and current AC
Milan Chairman Paolo Scaroni was acquitted of international
corruption Wednesday in a case involving alleged kickbacks paid
by the oil group's engineering unit Saipem to Algeria's former
energy minister Chakib Khelil and his entourage in exchange for
contracts to exploit oil deposits in the African country.
But former Saipem managers as well as the alleged middlemen
for the bribe were found guilty.
Also acquitted was ENI manager Antonio Vella.
ENI was also acquitted.
The Milan court came to the same conclusions as the
preliminary hearings judge did three years ago.
Former Saipem managers Pietro Varone, Alessandro Bernini and
Pietro Tali, as well as alleged middlemen Farid Bedjaoui, Samyr
Ouraied and Omar Habour, were sentenced to terms ranging from
five years and five months to four years and one month over the
alleged 197-million-euro kickback.
Saipem was also found guilty, and sentenced to pay a fine of
400,000 euros.
The Milan court ordered the confiscation of 197 million
euros, the sum allegedly paid by Saipem to the former minister.
A Milan prosecutor in February asked for a six-year and
four-month prison term for Scaroni.
The prosecutor also asked for a 900,000-euro fine for the
fuels group and Saipem.
He also asked for eight years in jail for Farid Noureddine
Bedjaoui, trustee of the then Algerian energy minister, who is
alleged to have been the beneficiary of the bribes.
Prosecutors had claimed it was "easier" for ENI to use its
subsidiary to move the alleged kickbacks.
ENI, Scaroni and the other defendants consistently denied the
charges.
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