“List of requirements” of Eni for participation in the Good Offices

It is essential to point out the “list of requirements” of Eni, presented to the NCP Brazil, when the company accepted to participate in the Good Offices (Doc. 01).

Note that, until Eni gave up the Good Offices, the NCP Brazil had informed me of only 2 (two) conditions of the company, which were immediately accepted and fulfilled by me.

The first requirement concerned the meetings with the mediators that should be held without the participation of the Parties, that is, they would be unilateral meetings. And the second condition was the “deleting” the “offenses” in disadvantage of Eni published on my personal social networks and also on the social networks “Eni’s Way”.

In fact, the overwhelming majority of these publications were just “negative publicity” replicated from the countless internet news stories about the “problems” in Eni’s management involving “disrespect for the environment” and “ethically questionable conduct”.

On this subject, it is essential to remember what the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” itself guides on “freedom of opinion and expression”:

“Article 19: Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”.

It is undeniable that the global corporate market is aware that there is an infinity of “negative publicity” about Eni and, for years, several institutions have promoted a “campaign” on the company's attitudes towards “ethics” and the “environment”, such as “Re:Common”, “Global Witness”, and “Greenpeace Italy”. The latter even called Eni a “climate killer” (Doc. 02) on May 10, 2022.

However, unlike the conduct adopted to my disadvantage, Eni did not prosecute any of these institutions for libel and defamation, much less the authors of the investigative book “Eni: The Parallel State” that published several “problems” in the management of the company in the period of 25 years (1990 to 2015).

Also note that the “requirements” of Eni are totally contrary to the “OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises” and the guidelines of the “OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Business Conduct”, as we will see later.

It is also necessary to emphasize that, during the entire process of this Specific Instance, including the attempt to jointly build the "ToR", through the sending to Eni by the NCP Brazil of my “Opening Speech” (Doc. 03), until the withdrawal of the mediation procedure by the Respondent, which took place on March 21, 2022, I had not had access to the document that contained the Respondent's “roll of requirements”.

Now, what are the real reasons for Eni “not authorizing” the NCP Brazil to give me access to this document?

Now, since Eni is a multinational and claims that it “accepts” and “follows” the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, does it not know that its requirements directly violate the guidelines of the OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Business Conduct?

Now, was Eni not fully aware that the “list of requirements” would totally make my participation in the Good Offices unfeasible?

On the other hand, it is uncontroversial in this Specific Instance that, in all these years, I wait to speak with representatives of Eni. In addition to the presidency of AGIP Brazil (2001 - Doc. 04) and the Ethics Committee in Brazil (2002 - Doc. 05), I made contact with four different Boards of Directors and three different CEOs: Mr. Vittorio Mincato (2002 - Doc. 06), Mr. Paolo Scaroni (2009 - Doc. 07), and Mr. Claudio Descalzi (2014 - Doc. 08 and 2020 - Doc. 09). Despite being insistent, the Respondent never responded to my contacts!

In the same way, Mr. Mauro Meggiolaro, a journalist and critical shareholder of Eni, took my case to be discussed in four Shareholders' Meetings (AGM), in the years 2017, 2018, 2020, and 2021. Even during the AGM 2018, Mr. Meggiolaro, using the microphone, spoke about the “Flinto case” with all the members of the Board of Directors present at Eni's corporate auditorium in Rome. However, even after putting himself as our “mediator”, Eni never accepted to participate in a “mediation meeting” to try to put an end to our story. The words of this critical shareholder are immortalized in the minutes of the 2018 AGM (Doc. 10), available on the Eni's website.

Now, on June 3, 2020, when Eni's lawyers met with my lawyer, at the “Rome Mediation Agency” (Doc. 11), the company's participation was 'only' to fulfill a 'ordinance' of the magistrate of the Civil Court of Rome, imposed on Eni at the hearing on October 29, 2019 (Doc. 12). And that's because, if Eni had not participated in this mediation procedure, the company knew that the second lawsuit against me would be filed under the new Italian legislation, causing Eni to suffer a new defeat in the Italian Courts.

So, why would the Respondent have a different behavior in 2022 during the Good Offices offered by NCP Brazil?

Therefore, as demonstrated in the facts above, in these two decades, Eni was never willing to have a “friendly conversation” and, now in this Specific Instance, unlike what Eni claims, there is no “good faith”, nor “active participation”, much less “full cooperation” in the work developed by NCP Brazil. And that's because there is strong evidence that Eni is using a “premeditated strategy”, especially because the requirements of the Respondent demonstrates that it is “not willing” to discuss the constant guidance in the "OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Business Conduct” to verify if, in my case, Eni is (or is not) in compliance with the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises.

And, because of that, it is extremely important that the NCP Brazil observe the following facts in relation to some of the “requirements” of Eni: