After Headquarters' visit...

In yesterday’s post, I showed that, following my letter to Eni’s Board of Directors and the instruction that the facts be reviewed and further investigated, Angelo Mario Taraborrelli, then CEO of Agip Petroli, personally came to Brazil.

But the story did not end with his visit.

What happened next is one of the most important chapters in this reconstruction.

Paolo Grossi, an Italian executive expatriated from headquarters who was already working in Brazil - and who recently took over at Eni International B.V. in Amsterdam, after a long tenure as CEO of Eni Rewind - began directly following the investigations concerning the Brazilian subsidiary’s operations.

Then the dismissals began:

🔹 December 3, 2002: the Regional Sales Manager for Minas Gerais was dismissed.

🔹 December 23, two days before Christmas: the executive responsible for São José do Rio Preto, with more than twenty years at the company, was dismissed.

🔹 December 30, the last business day of the year: the executive responsible for the Rio Grande do Sul Sales Region was dismissed.

Three regional executives in less than one month.

And it did not stop there.

Other Regional Sales Managers subsequently left the company, including those involved in the potential conflicts of interest presented in this campaign - among them the managers responsible for the Rio de Janeiro and Paulínia Sales Regions.

The sequence eventually reached the Commercial Directorate itself.

In July 2003, the Commercial Director directly involved in the events surrounding my whistleblowing report and dismissal also left the company, reportedly over “improper benefits” received from Agip do Brasil’s partners and suppliers - approximately one year before Eni sold its Brazilian assets to Petrobras in 2004.

Now compare these events with the memorandum presented on Wednesday.

In it, the subsidiary sought to justify my dismissal, questioned my conduct, and described as unfounded my allegations concerning how the Brazilian management had handled the irregularities.

But what happened afterward tells a story that deserves to be examined.

Following headquarters’ intervention, several executives within the Brazilian commercial organization left the company.

So, after twenty-five years, one question remains:

📌 if my allegations were truly unfounded, as the memorandum sent to headquarters claimed, what explains everything that happened afterward?

I am not asking you to accept my interpretation.

Examine the chronology. Compare the different versions. Read the documents.


❎ Learn more:

1️⃣ Agip Brasil Memorandum to ENI - Oct 7, 2002:
🔹 Portuguese
🔹 English

2️⃣ Agip Brasil corporate magazine — visit CEO Taraborrelli:
🔹 Portuguese
🔹 English

3️⃣ Documents concerning the executives’ dismissals:
🔹 Portuguese
🔹 English

The CEO of Agip Petroli came to Brazil

In my previous post, I presented the memorandum sent by Agip do Brasil to Eni headquarters on October 7, 2002.

The document sought to justify my dismissal and presented a “narrative” of the events that I dispute based on documents produced at the time.

If that response had been sufficient to resolve the questions raised before Eni’s Board of Directors, the Flinto Case would probably have ended there.

But that is not what happened.

Headquarters continued to address the matter.

And what happened next was particularly significant.

Angelo Mario Taraborrelli, then CEO of Agip Petroli, personally came to Brazil - a fact reported by Eni’s Brazilian subsidiary in its own corporate magazine.

He was not just any executive.

Taraborrelli headed Agip Petroli in Italy and therefore stood at a higher hierarchical level than the management of the Brazilian subsidiary that had responded to headquarters only days earlier.

His presence in Brazil marks an important development in my documentary reconstruction of the events.

A matter that until then had been handled primarily within the Brazilian organization was now receiving the direct attention of one of headquarters’ senior executives.

The chronology is worth considering:

🔹 August 1: my letter reaches ENI’s Board of Directors.

🔹 October 3: headquarters instructs the Brazilian subsidiary to review and further investigate the issues raised.

🔹 October 7: the subsidiary responds with the memorandum I presented yesterday, devoting much of its response to a “narrative” about the whistleblower.

🔹 After that: the CEO of Agip Petroli comes to Brazil.

This sequence raises an inevitable question:

📌 if the explanation provided by the Brazilian subsidiary had satisfactorily clarified the case, why did the matter continue to move forward within the headquarters structure?

I do not intend to answer that question with speculation.

I prefer to continue doing what the ENI’S WAY - 25 YEARS OF TRUTH campaign has set out to do from the beginning:

📌 present the documents and reconstruct the events in chronological order.

Because what happened after Taraborrelli’s presence in Brazil is even more important.

That is what I will present tomorrow.

After twenty-five years, my request remains the same:

🔴 compare ENI’s institutional narrative with the documents produced at the time.


❎ Learn more:

1️⃣ Letter to ENI's Board of Directors - Aug 1, 2002:
🔹 Italian version
🔹 English version

2️⃣ ENI Fax to CEO Agip do Brasil - Oct 3, 2002:
🔹 Italian version
🔹 English version

3️⃣ Agip do Brasil Memorandum to ENI - Oct 7, 2002:
🔹 Portuguese version
🔹 English version

4️⃣ Agip do Brasil corporate magazine - visit CEO Agip Petroli:
🔹 Portuguese version
🔹 English version