MILAN (Reuters) -An Italian appeals court on Thursday upheld an eight-month prison sentence for two Milan prosecutors 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 in March 2021 in what was known as the industry’s biggest corruption case, involving the $1.3 billion acquisition of a Nigerian oilfield a decade ago.
Judges in the northern city of Brescia on Thursday upheld the verdict handed down last year, which ruled that prosecutors Fabio De Pasquale and Sergio Spadaro failed in their legal obligation to file documents that could have helped the defence.
Before Thursday’s verdict, Spadaro read a lengthy statement to the court in which he said “there was no refusal, there was no omission,” and that the prosecutors had acted “according to conscience and law”.
Their two prosecutors’ lawyer, Massimo Dinoia, said they would appeal to the Court of Cassation, Italy’s top court.
De Pasquale and Spadaro can carry on working while the appeals process is under way.
The Milan court that acquitted the defendants in the Eni and Shell trial said the prosecutors had failed to file among the trial documents a video shot by a former external lawyer for Eni, which the court said was relevant to the case.
The Brescia court has jurisdiction over judges and prosecutors in the nearby city of Milan.
(Reporting by Emilio Parodi, editing by Gavin Jones)
