"Case Study: Eni settlement with a Nigerian community", 8 July 2020.

In 2019, a subsidiary of the Italian oil giant Eni reached an out-of-court settlement with the Ikebiri community in Nigeria following a damaging oil spill. This case study illustrates how corporations use settlements to avoid accepting liability in the courts and having to admit any wrongdoing.

Eni has been undertaking oil exploration and extraction operations in Nigeria since the 1960s. In 2010, equipment failure at one of its operations caused a damaging oil spill, when an oil pipeline operated by Eni’s subsidiary, the Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC), burst 250 metres from a creek north of one of the local Ikebiri communities.[1] Estimations of the number of barrels ending up in the environment range from 50[2] to 150.[3] The spill affected fishing ponds and trees that were essential to the local community, thus irreparably damaging people’s livelihoods and affecting their health.[4]...

In 2017, the Ikebiri community launched a court case against Eni in Milan, demanding a thorough clean-up of, and remedial compensation for, the 2010 oil spill caused by the failure of the pipeline operated its subsidiary.[6] This represented the first judicial case of its kind in Italy, namely the trial of an Italian multinational corporation for harms and rights violations perpetrated overseas in a foreign country...

After some months of discussion through negotiations parallel to the court proceedings, NAOC reached an out-of-court and confidential settlement agreement with the community in October 2018. NAOC committed to overhauling existing electricity generator sets, renovating the community’s health centre, constructing four kilometres of concrete road and providing direct electricity.[7] The settlement addressed some of the community’s needs, but it did not involve cleaning the pollution from the spill.[8]

In its review comments to an earlier version of this case study, Eni reiterates that the spill was properly cleaned up back in 2010, certified by Nigeria’s Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA), and therefore no further clean-up was required.[9] ...