An Italian court on Wednesday found oil services group Saipem guilty of international corruption but cleared oil and gas giant Eni and its former chief executive Paolo Scaroni in a long-running trial revolving around kickbacks in Algeria.
Eni’s upstream chief Antonio Vella chief was cleared in the case but six defendants were found guilty and Saipem was convicted of administrative malpractices and fined 400,000 euros.
The court also ordered the seizure of over 197 million euros from Saipem - a former Eni subsidiary.
In the case, Saipem was accused of paying intermediaries around 197 million euros to secure contracts worth 8 billion euros with Algeria’s state-owned energy firm Sonatrach.
Prosecutors had asked for a prison term of six years and four months for Scaroni.
Both Vella and Scaroni had denied any wrongdoing any in the case which covers the period 2007 to 2010.
