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MILAN, March 17 (Reuters) - A Milan court on Wednesday
acquitted energy companies Eni and Royal Dutch Shell
along with a series of past and present managers
including Eni Chief Executive Claudio Descalzi in the oil
industry's biggest corruption scandal.
The sentence, read out in court by judge Marco Tremolada,
comes more than three years after the trial first began and
after a total of 74 hearings.
He said the companies and defendants had been acquitted
because there was no case to answer.
The long-running case revolves around the purchase of the
OPL 245 offshore oilfield in Nigeria in 2011 from Malabu Oil and
Gas, a company owned by former Nigerian oil minister Dan Etete.
Prosecutors alleged that just under $1.1 billion of the
purchase price was siphoned off to politicians and middlemen,
including Etete.
Prosecutors had called for Eni and Shell to be fined and for
a number of past and present managers from both companies,
including Descalzi, to be jailed.
The defendants all denied any wrongdoing.
(Reporting by Emilio Parodi, Alfredo Faieta and Stephen Jewkes
in Milan, Shadia Nasralla and Ron Bousso in London; Editing by
David Clarke)