The House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services of the United States has asked the Department of Justice (DOJ), to reopen the Foreign Corruption Practice Act into Shell and Eni’s 2011 purchase of the rights to Oil Prospecting Licence (OPL), 245, one of Nigeria’s most lucrative oilfields.
The lawmakers said evidence implicates Shell and Eni for bribing Nigerian officials, including ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, for $1.1 billion.
According to the lawmakers: “Available evidence implicates both companies in a scheme that resulted in the payment of $1.1billion in bribes to Nigerian government officials, including then President Goodluck Jonathan.
“Shell and Eni, both registered with the US Security and Exchange Commission, continue to profit from the deal in violation of FCPA.”
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Africa Today News, New York recalls that a fortnight ago, a Federal High Court in Abuja had discharged and acquitted former Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mohammed Adoke (SAN) of the money laundering charges brought against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.
The presiding judge, Justice Inyang Ekwo, while delivering a ruling on a no-case submission filed by the former AGF, held that the EFCC failed to establish a prima facie (sufficient evidence) case against him.
“I find that there is no evidence to prove the alleged offences against the first defendant (Adoke),” the judge said.
However, Justice Ekwo ruled that Aliyu Abubakar, the second defendant, has to open his defence because he has a case to answer.
EFCC had preferred a 14 counts charge against Adoke and an oil mogul, Aliyu Abubakar.
In the charge, the anti-graft agency alleged that Adoke sometime in August 2013 in Abuja accepted a cash payment of the dollar equivalent of N300 million from Abubakar and thereby committed an offence punishable under section 16(2)(b) of the money laundering Prohibition Act 2011 as amended.