📅 January 2022 | Rome, Italy — Campinas, Brazil
🔷 Have you ever imagined receiving, at your home in Brazil, a registered letter from the Rome Public Prosecutor's Office, written in Italian, requiring you to elect a domicile in Italy within 30 days?
Now imagine this happening while you are participating in a consensual dispute resolution process with the very company responsible for filing the criminal complaint, conducted by Brazil's National Contact Point (NCP Brazil), under the OECD framework!
That is exactly what happened to me in early 2022.
📌 An unexpected letter from Rome!
In January 2022, I was surprised to receive an international registered letter, with acknowledgment of receipt, sent by the Procura della Repubblica presso il Tribunale Ordinario di Roma — the Public Prosecutor's Office at the Court of Rome.
The envelope identified criminal proceeding No. 5533/2018.
The correspondence contained a notification abroad (Notificazioni all'Estero), dated December 9, 2021, requiring me to declare or elect a domicile in Italian territory within 30 days.
If I failed to comply, future notifications could be served on my appointed lawyer or, in the absence of one, on a court-appointed defense attorney.
But there was something deeply strange about that correspondence!
🔷 The notification was written only in Italian!
Although the document itself stated that a Portuguese translation was attached, the correspondence I received did not contain that translation!
And there was another detail: since I live in a condominium building, the acknowledgment of receipt for the registered letter was signed by the doorman.
In other words, a communication concerning criminal proceedings initiated in Italy against a Brazilian citizen residing in Brazil was delivered directly to the reception desk of the building where I live.
Without my having received the notification translated into my own language!
📌 Why did I initially suspect that the correspondence was fake?
Because this was not the first time Eni had resorted to the Italian courts against me or the Brazilian Institute of Ethics in Business (Instituto Brasileiro de Ética nos Negócios).
In the legal proceedings initiated in 2010 and 2017, service of process had involved formal international judicial cooperation mechanisms between Brazil and Italy, including documents in Italian accompanied by Portuguese translations.
Why, then, was the Rome Public Prosecutor's Office using a different procedure?
🔷 And what did I discover when I examined the documentation?
The correspondence was related to a criminal complaint filed by Eni in 2018, concerning my public statements about the Flinto Case and the publication of information on the ENI'S WAY website.
The proceeding had been registered under No. 5533/2018, but the notification I received was not issued until December 2021.
And here is a particularly significant circumstance!
At that very moment, Eni and I were participating in the Good Offices conducted by NCP Brazil, seeking a possible consensual solution to a dispute that had already lasted more than two decades!
While a mediation initiative was underway in Brazil, I was receiving a communication from Italy concerning criminal proceedings arising from a complaint filed by the very same company.
What a paradox!
On one side, a multinational company participating in a consensual dispute resolution process under the OECD - OCDE Guidelines.
On the other, the whistleblower receiving an international criminal notification under circumstances that raised serious questions about compliance with judicial cooperation mechanisms between the two countries.
📌 And where does the Judicial Cooperation Treaty between Brazil and Italy come into play?
Brazil and Italy have a bilateral treaty on judicial cooperation in criminal matters, promulgated in Brazil by Decree No. 862 of July 9, 1993.
Given the circumstances surrounding the receipt of the letter, I began questioning whether the notification had complied with the applicable international procedures.
After all, why was a criminal notification sent directly to my home, without a Portuguese translation being provided to me, when Eni's previous legal proceedings had followed formal judicial cooperation procedures?
And, most importantly:
Had the Rome Public Prosecutor's Office fully complied with the provisions of the bilateral treaty between Brazil and Italy?
🔷 A question that could not remain unanswered!
I decided to seek answers from the competent Brazilian authorities.
What I subsequently discovered made this story even more troubling.
Because the issue was no longer merely my interpretation of a letter received at home. It came to involve official communications concerning the need to comply with the international treaty!
And those communications will be presented in the upcoming episodes of this documentary series.
🔷 Eni, an unavoidable question!
How can the company's participation in a consensual dispute resolution process before NCP Brazil be reconciled with the existence of criminal proceedings against the same whistleblower in another country?
Is this how a company demonstrates its commitment to dialogue, whistleblower protection, and the responsible resolution of disputes?
After 25 years of questioning the irregularities I reported in 2001 and the retaliation that followed, I continue to demand that the facts be examined through a truly independent investigation.
And I continue to question why Eni's response to my reports of misconduct has so often involved the courts, rather than an independent investigation into the facts originally reported!
🔴 INSTEAD, ENI SHOULD AUTHORIZE A TRULY INDEPENDENT, IMPARTIAL, AND TRANSPARENT INVESTIGATION INTO THE FLINTO CASE!
🔷 NEXT EPISODE: WHY DID ITALY USE DIFFERENT PROCEDURES TO NOTIFY THE SAME WHISTLEBLOWER?
❎ Learn more:
1️⃣ Registered letter sent by the Rome Public Prosecutor's Office — December 2021:
🔹 Original envelope
2️⃣ Notification Abroad (Notificazioni all'Estero) — December 9, 2021:
🔹 Original document in Italian
🔹 English translation
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