Something grave is occurring in the Eni trial, and beyond it, in the surreal silence that envelops everyone. Dancing in the dark—or on the thin line of the soft subversion of the Rule of Law?
PREAMBLE
I am a victim who has joined the proceedings as a civil party (parte civile) in the ongoing trial in the ongoing trial against Eni before the Third Criminal Division of the Court of Milan (Tribunale di Milano). The subject of the trial is a criminal association (associazione per delinquere) embedded within ENI, operational between 2014 and 2019 but certainly beyond, which is alleged to have committed the most serious crimes to shield from investigation and prosecution for international corruption in Nigeria (the so-called OPL 245 affair) the then and current CEO of ENI, Claudio Descalzi.
The crimes alleged against the criminal association within Eni paint a disturbing picture of a “quasi-subversive design” against the constitutional order, primarily against the autonomy of the Public Prosecutors (Pubblici Ministeri – PM) and Judges (Giudici) of Milan.
In the initial phase of the investigation, the CEO of ENI was under investigation as the “promoter and organiser” of the criminal association formed within ENI.
In the subsequent phase, the Office of the Prosecutor of Milan (Procura di Milano) requested the filing of charges or dismissal (archiviazione) against Mr. Descalzi based on a criminal slander (calunnia) allegation against two members of the criminal association, who were accused of having falsely accused him of having suborned one of them, the “collaborator with justice” (pentito) Mr. Armanna.
Mr. Descalzi acquired the status of “victim” and, in an extraordinary progression—almost a cursus honorum—ascended to becoming a “victim” even of the Prosecutors De Pasquale and Spadaro, who had accused him. The two Prosecutors were recently convicted by the Court of Brescia on charges of refusal to perform official acts (rifiuto di atti d’ufficio), specifically for the omitted disclosure to the ENI defence team of documentation allegedly decisive or relevant for the acquittal of Mr. Descalzi.
My action against ENI stems from the slander by the “collaborator” Armanna when he retracted the accusations originally made against Mr. Descalzi himself.
I intend to speak here of my own case, and I do so only because I believe that what is happening to me transcends far beyond myself and my right to compensation for damages (risarcimento del danno) suffered.
The Court of Milan acquitted Eni and its CEO in the Nigeria OPL 245 case, and the Office of the Prosecutor General of Milan (Procura Generale di Milano) waived the right to appeal the Prosecutor’s case.
If the accusations collapsed under their own weakness, why from 2014 to 2019 and beyond did ENI conspire and commit crimes to defend against them?
The public trial of the “conspiracy” is now underway in a surreal climate. Not a single journalist is in attendance to report on it—neither mainstream outlets, nor self-styled free press magazines, nor television, nor social media. Strange. Italy is a chatty country, fond of gossip, inclined to satire even against the powerful. This time, no. Only the sound of silence. Did the conspiracy perhaps succeed?
THE TRIAL AND A LAWYER, A NON-COMPLIANT CIVIL PARTY AGAINST ENI
I am also participating in the trial of civil capacity for the charge of criminal association under Article 416 of the Italian Penal Code (art. 416 c.p.) against defendants who belonged, in various capacities, to the inner circle of the current CEO. From the outset, I chose Bar. Susanna Arcieri as my defence counsel, with whom I had collaborated for thirteen years.
The civil party Santa Maria, with Bar. Arcieri, has brought to light in the trial facts of significance that were previously left, during the troubled investigation by the Office of the Prosecutor of the Republic of Milan (Procura della Repubblica di Milano), and now during the trial itself, in unjustified obscurity.
Through a memorandum (memoria) of over sixty pages and more than one hundred exhibits, written by multiple hands, the defence for the civil party has publicly demonstrated the coincidence between the retraction by the “collaborator” Armanna—who had accused Mr. Descalzi—and the arrival of funds from the Eni group for his benefit in Nigeria. The evidence is strengthened by the indisputable proof that the ENI defence and, above all, Eni itself and Mr. Descalzi, knew as early as the end of 2016 (i.e., after the notice under Article 415-bis for OPL 245) that the NAOC-Fenog channel had been used to remunerate Mr. Armanna himself as far back as the end of 2014. It is highly significant from a procedura (processualmente) standpoint that the channel was not shut down, at least until 2018, but was rather enhanced, opening the doors between late 2016 and early 2017 to new contracts and a new Eni-Armanna financial flow, precisely when the “collaborator” repented of his repentance and retracted his accusations against Mr. Descalzi. Last but not least, an Eni audit confirms that all NAOC–Fenog payments from 2014 to 2016 were non-compliant with ENI’s internal procedures, and the procedural violations were aimed at favouring Fenog as the payer of Mr. Armanna. If NAOC paid Fenog irregularly, it means the NAOC responsible official agreed to operate contrary to Eni’s internal rules. Who could have persuaded him to do so?
Mr. Descalzi is not a defendant in this trial. He is a civil party for a slander, alleged against Armanna and Amara, committed to his and Mr. Granata’s detriment, consisting of having falsely accused them of having induced Mr. Armanna to retract the accusations against Mr. Descalzi in exchange for promised payments in Nigeria via Fenog.
Mr. Armanna retracted; Eni, and it is hard not to say Mr. Descalzi, paid for the retraction of the accusations against Mr. Descalzi. The accusation by the two, Amara and Armanna (who later repented of his repentance), is on the path to being objectively verified procedurally. And the slander is on the verge of collapsing.
The CEO of Eni had the charges against him dismissed during the investigation phase regarding his alleged role as the promoter of the criminal association built within Eni, solely on the basis of the slander constructed against him in the final stages of the investigation.
Mr. Descalzi and Eni were acquitted in the OPL245 trial. And from the investigations into the “conspiracy,” they were well on their way to obtaining the same favourable judicial outcome. Some matters remained to be settled, including my own.
As a civil party against Eni for Mr. Armanna’s email of 11 February 2017, and as the former lawyer of Mr. Armanna slandered by his former client, I had and have the right to the procedural verification of all those within and outside Eni who planned the operation. I was on the right track.
Action and Reaction
On 23 July 2024, I sent a PEC (Certified Email) to ENI announcing my intention to also take civil action against the two lawyers, Diodà and Grosso, who had filed the email against me with the then Chief Prosecutor (Procuratore Capo) Greco. It was a manifest slander, manifestly constructed to favour Mr. Descalzi. The email now appears “orchestrated” and “purchased” by Eni, as noted above.
The civil action for professional negligence (colpa) against ENI’s advocates, Diodà and Grosso, was objectively capable of raising questions about the conduct of ENI’s other lawyers. None of them could have believed in the veracity of the email, yet all, primarily Mr. Descalzi’s lawyer, consented to its filing with the Prosecutor’s Office (Procura). A negligence lawsuit could have extended civil liability for the slander to the very top of ENI. ENI’s control system at the time, dependent then as now on Mr. Descalzi, could have been called into question as never before.
I have reported, in the preliminary investigations (indagini preliminari), the preliminary hearing (udienza preliminare), and the trial (dibattimento), that the Office of the Prosecutor of the Republic (Procura della Repubblica) has never, or not yet, provided reasons for the omitted charge against ENI of administrative liability under Legislative Decree 231/2001 for the predicate offence of “criminal association.”
I had thrown a cat among the pigeons.
On 24 July 2024, the day after the PEC to ENI, a sudden and apparently impromptu action was launched that, in the following months, led to the dissolution of my law firm.
The multinational Syensqo, my client for twenty-five years, via an email from the General Counsel, revoked with immediate effect all the numerous instructions my firm had received and was carrying out with the competence and passion that Syensqo had always publicly recognised. Syensqo had been defended by me with notable outcomes, including in civil (i.e., financial) matters, in historic environmental lawsuits against Edison, successor to Montedison. In one of these cases, I was the recipient of a slander complaint from which I was obviously acquitted. The Edison defendants were defended by several of the lawyers who now defend Eni.
The leopard does not change its spots, especially when it cannot prevail by force of argument, perhaps because it does not know how.
Syensqo’s General Counsel, Mark Rollinger, did not indicate the cause for the revocation, which he imposed without even notice, despite knowing that the framework agreement stipulated just months before between Syensqo and my firm expressly provided for it. At the moment of revocation, a hearing was fully underway that had existential significance for the chemical multinational in Italy. Such haste, Mr. Rollinger, but where are you running to?
The move on 24 July was irrational and therefore highly anomalous. The Company’s trust until the day before was unshakable, and my cost, i.e., the cost of my firm, was consistent with professional standing and, above all, with the extraordinary results obtained over many years. Syensqo, a major multinational chemical Group, constituted 90% of my firm’s turnover.
Whoever wanted to annihilate me could not have struck a better blow to sink me. Was there an agreement? If so, what would Syensqo have gained from it? Between ENI, through its subsidiary Versalis, and Syensqo, there exist common strategic interests, e.g., in the ongoing lobbying campaign at the Italian, European, and global level, “pro-PFAS” – toxic and “forever” pollutants in human blood and the environment that Syensqo produces and Eni uses. European chemical industries use CEFIC as a lobbying tool, of which the CEO of Syensqo, Ms. Kadri, is President, succeeding the CEO of Eni’s Versalis. Syensqo has very serious concerns in Italy, where it is the sole producer of PFAS, after the Miteni bankruptcy. Ah, Miteni. The Miteni case (and Syensqo’s PFAS) was recently decided by the Court of Assizes (Corte d’Assise) of Vicenza, with sentences of up to 17 years’ imprisonment, among others, for two former very high-ranking executives of Solvay (now Syensqo) seconded to Miteni. The exclusion of Solvay from the Vicenza trial is a “grace received.” ENI’s subsidiary, Eni Rewind, which was in Miteni only until 1996 (but it was there), will have to remediate the tragic pollution caused by Miteni from the industrial use of a PFAS, Cc6O4, which belongs solely to Syensqo, which, however, was not invited to do what it should have. The true principal of the disaster (nearly 4000 deaths in Veneto and who knows how many more in Piedmont and the rest of Northern Italy) remains outside; Eni, far less culpable, will remediate instead of Solvay. It is strange that the truth does not emerge even from those, like Eni, who would have an interest in it. Eni, with Versalis, is moving into green chemistry and plans to invest billions in Brindisi for a European electric battery hub that will hardly be able to do without PFAS, which in Italy today are produced only by Solvay, now Syensqo.
All conjecture, perhaps not unreasonable, but conjecture.
Could it be that Syensqo assessed that it was preferable to defend itself through “politics” and not through the law in a trial, and that Eni, more than anyone, could guarantee the necessary “protection”? “Mafia-like” logic? Who knows.
In a subsequent move on 30 July 2024, Syensqo’s Country Manager, Mr. Apostolo, via a “courteous” PEC, refused payment for four months of my law firm’s work, on pretexts of unsustainable frivolity, and, not content, threatened me with unclear, certainly not benevolent, consequences if I were to defend my rights in court. The threat is not normal. It betrays a fear of judicial scrutiny of Syensqo’s actions.
Mr. Apostolo copied the PEC to a lawyer, Anna Doro, who, until May 2025, was a sitting Director (Sindaco effettivo) and active member of the Organismo di Vigilanza of another titan of Italian capitalism, TIM. The company was a long-standing client of my firm, since the time of the criminal trial against corporate security, responsible for mass dossiering, in which, defended by me, it became a civil party against the defendants. What matters here is that TIM represented, as of 30 July 2024, the remaining 10% of my firm’s turnover.
For its action against me, Syensqo engaged the law firm Clifford Chance, considered by some the most powerful in the world, and there would have been no reason for this if the dispute with me were solely about legal fees contested by the client.
Anna Doro and another lawyer, Mr. Principi, initiated a subsequent procedure before the Council of the Bar Association of Milan (Consiglio dell’Ordine degli Avvocati di Milano), conducted behind the backs of Clifford Chance, in which they requested a conciliation which they would never truly declare themselves available for. The citation was a pretext for other unproven accusations and threats of disciplinary sanctions – disbarment (radiazione), and of transmitting the documents to the Prosecutor’s Office for my alleged crimes.
The “colleagues” requested, contra legem, that the Council of the bar settle my fees using criteria in conflict with the contract their Client had stipulated with me.
A SYSTEMIC PUNISHMENT?
The apparatus set up against me has the hallmarks of a disconcerting systemic punishment. I was the first to be incredulous at this shocking hypothesis. I never believed I deserved such… honour.
I have reported to the Council itself the lawyers Anna Doro, Fabio Guastadisegni, Greta Negro of Clifford Chance, and Emanuele Principi, for the events that occurred, summarised here, which, in my opinion, constitute, beyond disciplinary offences, the crimes of slander (calunnia) and attempted extortion (tentata estorsione).
Subsequently, the Clifford Chance team was bolstered with lawyers Golino and Curatola, resounding names, while Doro, Principi, and Negro exited the scene. It appears Syensqo has shown the door to the clumsy Mr. Rollinger, and Mr. Apostolo has also been benched and replaced by a “political” Country Manager who built his career in IPpetroli, not far from Eni.
I have, through my lawyers, served a writ of summons (atto di citazione) on Syensqo and its Italian subsidiary, characterising my former Client’s behaviour as a most serious abuse of rights (abuso del diritto), resulting in quantifiable damages of 13 million euros and more.
My law firm, however, with no prospect of continuing work with its major clients and lacking liquidity due to Syensqo’s default (inadempimento), ceased to exist a few months after July 2024, with consequences for my personal life as grave as one can imagine.
I have, nevertheless, continued the action to protect my rights against Eni for the pro-Eni slander I suffered.
DEUS EX MACHINA – STAGE RIGHT
On 17 December 2024, I filed a complaint with the Prosecutor of the Republic of Milan (Procuratore della Repubblica di Milano), the District Anti-Mafia Directorate (Direzione Distrettuale Antimafia – DDA), and the Prosecutors leading the accusation in the “pro-Eni conspiracy” trial.
Unforeseen press articles in the autumn of 2024 published excerpts of telephone intercepts by the Prosecutor’s Office of Milan between suspects from the company Equalize—an obscure den of spies connected with Italian and foreign intelligence services. Two individuals (one has just died) revealed facts previously unknown about ENI and the “conspiracy” events.
In a nutshell, the story. The current General Counsel of ENI, amidst contradictions and various obfuscations, declared to the Prosecutor’s Office of Milan that he had found documents, at the very least “anomalous,” several times in January 2020 “under his doormat.” His lawyer, Mr. Alecci, filed some of these “doormat” documents with the Prosecutor’s Office of Milan in February of that year. The “doormat” intrigue could not, of course, intrigue anyone. The filed documents came from ENI or from someone very close to Eni and, after the invention of the “doormat,” were used by Eni for its own procedural advantage. At that time, early 2020, Eni and its CEO were under investigation for the OPL 245 international corruption.
The “doormat” fact, only recently known because it was the subject of a separate investigation, already seemed to me of objective relevance in reconstructing the “conspiracy.” The novelty now was the involvement of Equalize, whose managers “confessed” over the phone to having fabricated the documents that Mr. Speroni said he found under the doormat. An Oscar-worthy “pantomime,” the two from Equalize called it, adding that only Mr. Speroni and Mr. Descalzi were aware of it.
My complaint therefore proposed, with this new part, a unified logical explanation of the ENI facts that was directly opposite to the judicial narrative subsequently constructed and imposed. I suggested in the complaint that, starting from there, from the false doormat, one could construct a unified and logical explanation of the “conspiracy” opposite to the implausible one that emerged in the subsequent procedural iter. One could perhaps reconstruct the path of the accusations that “saved” ENI and then led to the conviction of the two Prosecutors De Pasquale and Spadaro in Brescia, and the red thread of this new narrative started from Eni.
Whether and what investigations are underway by the DDA or anyone else, I cannot know.
THE ENI DEFENCE ON THE ATTACK. ATTEMPTING TO REFUTE THE EVIDENCE IN THE CIVIL PARTY’S MEMORANDUM ON THE SUBORNATION OF THE COLLABORATOR
The trial before the Court continued without the Court’s knowledge of the civil party’s complaint, which had been filed in a separate case under the jurisdiction of other Prosecutors.
A relevant trial hearing was held on 29 May 2025. The Eni defence called Mr. Insulla, General Manager of NAOC, to testify in an attempt to refute the civil party defence’s memorandum mentioned earlier. The ENI thesis was that NAOC’s business in Africa with Fenog followed logic independent of that of ENI in Milan and Rome. A reckless thesis. If Mr. Insulla had told the truth in court when answering questions from ENI’s defence, he would have self-incriminated for having indirectly paid Mr. Armanna with NAOC money in violation of Eni procedures. He would have had no reason to do so, however. The cross-examination by Bar. Arcieri was a checkmate for the defence of the Chief Executive Officer of Eni who had examined the witness. The civil party’s thesis emerged strengthened.
THE REACTION?
A few days later, on 4 June, something important happened. In a firm meeting, Susanna Arcieri informed me of her two decisions: that she would abandon my defence after the hearing on 10 July, and that from September she would begin working with Puccio Studio. There was no logical consecutio between the two facts. Bar. Arcieri could work at Puccio without having to abandon my defence in the ENI trial.
I learned about the third decision in the following days. Bar. Arcieri wrote to me that she would not finalise and therefore sign another powerful memorandum on the substantiation of the Article 416 charges pro-Descalzi, which she herself had suggested filing by 10 July, and which, months in the making, would have had repercussions, to say the least unpleasant, for the ENI defence.
Just later I got that Puccio Penalisti Associati orbits in various ways around Severino Penalisti Associati, the law firm of Claudio Descalzi’s lawyer. What seemed illogical now became more intelligible.
The facts briefly summarised here, read in conjunction with the facts narrated earlier and the evolution of the ENI “conspiracy” trial, allow for the hypothesis that they fit into a broader explanatory context. First with the events post – 23 and 24 July 2024, and now, almost closing the circle, with the events post – 29 May 2025, the civil party has been annihilated in its professionalism and individual persona and was now severely weakened in its procedural capacity at a crucial juncture of the trial against ENI.
I can seek a substitute—and I have—but the defence of my rights is now impaired. What happened is not merely a “private” harm to the civil party. It is also a harm to the Court. The dynamics of the dialectic between the parties in the trial, which had characterised the judicial history of the “pro-ENI conspiracy” until 4 June 2024, has been altered, and will be even more so in the final decisive phase of the trial. Since the ascertainment of the truth arises from the free unfolding of the parties’ dialectic within the framework of the law, its manipulation means that today the verdictum could be further away than before.
What occurred is therefore an advantage acquired by the defence of ENI and its Chief Executive Officer.
I have no reason to doubt the personal integrity of the colleague who collaborated brilliantly with me for thirteen years, and indeed I will never point the finger at her. The stakes, however, are high and can induce anyone to improper behaviour in the face of prestigious professional offers (which Bar. Arcieri fully deserves).
For some time in the trial, Bar. Severino has had to retreat on the defence front, for the reason that Mr. Descalzi’s figure appears increasingly suspended between the civil party that he is and the defendant he could still become. The potential collapse of the already falsified hypothesis of slander against Mr. Descalzi could, as stated at the beginning, tip the scales of justice in the opposite direction to the judicial narrative that has been imposed thus far.
It is unnecessary for me to elaborate on the potential extra-judicial and systemic consequences that could derive from the hypothetical “rediscovery” of the truth.
A splash of colour. Mr. Descalzi, and curiously also his lawyer, Ms. Severino, collaborate—the one as CEO of ENI as a “strategic actor,” the other as President of the National School of Administration as an “operational arm”—in the control room of the so-called Mattei Plan for Africa. Ms. Severino and Mr. Descalzi could not have received such honour if the one had defended the other, convicted of international corruption and, who knows, charged for the “conspiracy.”
The investigations and trials for international corruption in Africa defended by Ms. Severino have had astonishingly favourable outcomes, but they do not appear, as mentioned, exempt from serious criticisms that have so far found no echo in a swamp of judicial and media consensus whose unanimity is disturbing.
There is another no less important stake. The ability to safeguard the conduct of the “conspiracy” trial will decide whether the judiciary is capable of asserting real autonomy against an nonetheless enormous Power, and whether space still exists for private action against it.
What I know and have very briefly narrated here is not proof of a “new conspiracy” still underway “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Nor is it nothing, however. I see sufficiently grave, precise, and concordant indicia (indizi) that would deserve to be investigated, if only to refute as fanciful the logical thread I now cannot help but perceive.
The apparent formal lawfulness of the facts, considered atomistically, falls away if, considered together, the facts are explicable as a programme directed at a ruthless and morally abject punitive or intimidatory will towards me.
The potential criminal aspects at play in the story that has touched me are evident: from instigation (istigazione) to conflict of interest / unethical representation (infedele patrocinio) (punishable even in the absence of intent (dolo) of the perpetrator), to aiding and abetting (favoreggiamento), to attempted coercion (tentativo di violenza privata), up to extortion (estorsione), and others. This affair has a long and murky tail.
My personal annihilation seems analogous, in method, to the “character assassination” carried out on Zingales, Litvack, Vergine, and perhaps others, and is already a charge from which Eni must defend itself in the current trial before the Court of Milan.
CONCLUSION
In a nutshell, the stakes here are very high. If the “pro-Eni conspiracy” did exist—and I do not see how it can be denied already—and the CEO of Eni was a knowing actor, the entire history of OPL245 might have to be rewritten. Who, knowing themselves innocent of accusations of international corruption in Nigeria, would set up a criminal programme with many traits of a “subversive conspiracy” against the order of state powers to defend themselves?
Our criminal system is, perhaps, all too protective of guarantees, especially for the powerful. If the conspiracy did exist, it means the subversive action was considered indispensable, and how can one then say that the corruption in Nigeria was a false construction by activist Prosecutors and enemies of ENI? Worse still. With a pinch of black humour, but perhaps not too much, we could say that the “conspiracy” worked, and indeed worked all too well, given that the two Milan Prosecutors who led the accusation were convicted in Brescia, and Mr. Descalzi emerged from the match with the label of “victim.”
The consequences would be devastating for the confidence that we still fully live in a Rule of Law, which instead is perhaps dissolving.
If I am wrong in my conjectures, if I have seen “conspiracies” where there were only random coincidences, albeit extraordinarily improbable ones, I shall resign myself, as Job did, and declare myself a victim of no earthly design, but solely of that profane wager between God and Devil—thereby absolving all others on earth.