An Italian court sentenced on Tuesday two Milan prosecutors to eight months in prison for failing to file documents that would have supported energy group Eni’s position in an international corruption case.
Eni, Shell, and all the defendants were nevertheless acquitted by a court in Milan in March 2021 in what came to be known as the industry’s biggest corruption case, which revolved around the $1.3 billion acquisition of a Nigerian oilfield a decade ago.
Judges in a court in the northern city of Brescia ruled that Milan prosecutors Fabio De Pasquale and Sergio Spadaro had a legal obligation to file documents that could have helped the defence team in that trial.
Massimo Dinoia, the two prosecutors’ lawyer, said that his clients planned to appeal against the verdict once the detailed reasons were filed by the court within 45 days. They can carry on working while the appeals process is under way.
“This is a dangerous precedent because it calls into question a fundamental principle, which is that of autonomy in the procedural choices of a public prosecutor,” he said.
The ruling, if upheld, will also mean that the two prosecutors, along with the government, will have to compensate in a separate civil proceeding one of the defendants acquitted in the Eni trial, who had joined this case as an offended party.
The Milan court that acquitted all the defendants in the Eni and Shell trial criticised the way the prosecutors had carried out their work, saying they had failed to file among the trial documents a video shot by a former Eni external lawyer, which they said was relevant to the case.
The Brescia court issued the eight-month sentence that had been requested by prosecutors who said De Pasquale and Spadaro had hidden elements in favour of the defendants in the Eni-Shell trial, infringing their rights.
Their lawyer had asked the court for a full acquittal, arguing there was no rule that immediately and directly required prosecutors to file documents in a trial.
The Brescia court has jurisdiction over judges and prosecutors in the nearby city of Milan.
