Ep66 - 2017: Ten questions. No individual answers!

In Apr 2017, my case reached Eni’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) for the first time, under the leadership of Chair Emma Marcegaglia and CEO Claudio Descalzi.

Italian journalist and critical shareholder Mauro Meggiolaro, representing Fondazione Finanza Etica, included 10 questions about the Flinto Case among those formally submitted to the company before the AGM.

They were objective questions.

Among them:

1️⃣ Does Eni encourage its employees to report fraud, corruption and misconduct?

2️⃣ What should happen when an employee suffers retaliation after reporting wrongdoing?

3️⃣ Which of the different versions presented by Eni regarding my dismissal was true?

In 2002, the Brazilian subsidiary had stated that my departure resulted from an “administrative and organizational restructuring”.

Later, Eni maintained that I had been dismissed because I failed to cooperate with an internal investigation and had adopted a “reticent” attitude.

Which version was true?

The questions continued:

4️⃣ If an internal investigation really took place in Brazil, why did Eni not present its findings as evidence in the lawsuit filed against me in Rome?

5️⃣ What did the Brazilian court decision cited by the company actually say in full?

6️⃣ If I was the person who reported the irregularities, how could I simultaneously have refused to cooperate and adopted a “reticent” attitude during the investigation?

7️⃣ Why did Eni never respond to the communications I sent to the Boards of Directors under Vittorio Mincato, Paolo Scaroni and Claudio Descalzi?

And further:

8️⃣ Why did Eni decide to sue me and the Brazilian Institute for Business Ethics?

9️⃣ After the Rome Court found the lawsuit unfounded, why did the Board of Directors not instruct Internal Audit to investigate the Flinto Case?

🔟 Finally: what did Eni intend to do to correct the situation?

And here is the central point.

Eni did not answer the ten questions individually.

Instead, it provided a lengthy corporate response.

First, Eni stated that whistleblowing is an essential element of its Internal Control and Risk Management System and that its procedures should ensure that whistleblowers are not subjected to any form of retaliation.

Then it turned to me.

And it was in this response that Eni presented a new and extremely serious version of the reasons for my dismissal.

More than that:

📌 to lend credibility to this version, the company stated that the conclusions of its “in-depth investigations” into my case had been reported by the Collegio Sindacale in “Eni’s 2002 Annual Report”.

There was only one problem.

“Eni’s 2002 Annual Report” was not available on Eni’s corporate website.

But after an extensive search on the internet, I found this official company document.

And I went looking for what the company said had been published there.

Tomorrow, I will show what I found.


❎ Learn more:

1️⃣ Questions and Answers before the 2017 AGM: https://shre.ink/GeON