Ep74 - Eni's AGM 2020: 13 questions... One Answer!

In the previous episode, I showed that, on April 19, 2020, I wrote directly to Lucia Calvosa, then nominated to become Chairwoman of Eni’s Board of Directors.

I presented the Flinto Case, provided documents and pointed to questions that remained unanswered.

A few weeks later, the case would once again reach Eni’s Annual General Meeting.

📌 May 13, 2020.

For the third time, critical shareholder Mauro Meggiolaro, through Fondazione Finanza Etica, brought my case to Eni’s AGM.

Eni’s official document included a specific section:

🔹 “Section III on behalf of the whistle-blower Douglas Linares Flinto.”

And 13 questions were submitted.

Among them:

🔹 What facts, evidence and documents supported Eni’s version of my dismissal?

🔹 Why did Eni state at the 2017 AGM that my case had been published in the “Eni 2002 Financial Statements” if, according to my challenge, there was no reference to me in that document?

🔹 Would Eni participate in a meeting with me, mediated by Fondazione Finanza Etica?

🔹 Would Eni participate in the mediation within the second lawsuit?

🔹 Where were the documents exchanged between Eni headquarters and Agip Brazil concerning my case?

🔹 Would Eni conduct an independent investigation into the Flinto Case?

And finally:

🔴 If an independent investigation found mistakes by Agip Brazil — and Eni itself — would the company acknowledge them so that, after 19 years, I could restore my reputation?

13 questions.

What was Eni’s answer?

🔴 “Answer to questions 1.1 to 1.13”

Eni stated that the case was the subject of pending disputes and therefore:

“Eni does not consider this to be the place to deal with them and further discuss them, since they are already under the attention of the judiciary.”

No individual answers.

No indication of where my case appeared in the Eni 2002 Financial Statements.

No answer about the documents, mediation or an independent investigation.

📌 Eni chose not to address the substance of the 13 questions.

And this raises an inevitable question:

If, in 2017, Eni’s AGM was considered an appropriate place for the company to present its version of the Flinto Case, why, in 2020, was the same AGM no longer considered an appropriate place to answer questions challenging that version with documentary evidence?

In 2017, Eni presented its version.

In 2020, when confronted with questions and documents, it referred the matter to the judiciary.

Yet the Italian judiciary itself had opened another path:

🔹 mediation.

📌 July 1, 2020.

That will be another document in this story, which I will present next Monday.


❎ Learn more:

1️⃣ AGM 2020 - Questions and Answers

2️⃣ Memorial (1999-2025)

3️⃣ Chronology of Facts for the Reconstruction of Events

Ep73 - 2020: A new Chairwoman. But...

In 2020, before Eni’s Annual General Meeting (AGM), I once again attempted to bring the Flinto Case to the attention of the company’s corporate governance.

The Italian media began reporting the names of those who would make up Eni’s new Board of Directors, which would be formally appointed at the AGM in May.

Among them was lawyer and university professor Lucia Calvosa (Università di Pisa), nominated by the Italian government - the largest shareholder of the Italian oil giant - to become Chairwoman of the company.

For me, a new composition of the Board also meant a new opportunity:

📌 to present the documents to people who had not been directly involved in the previous events.

So, on April 19, 2020, I sent a message directly to Lucia Calvosa.

The subject of the email was:

🔹 “Eni's Chairwoman x Eni's Whistleblower”

At the very beginning, I wrote:

🔹 “I need you to know my Ethical Clash with Eni”.

And I explained that my message and the attached documents would allow her to learn about my documented version of the events before hearing the version presented by the company’s executives.

It was not an isolated message.

📎 The email included four attached documents, including a detailed account of the facts and documents related to the Shareholders’ Meetings and the questions I had been raising with the company.

Over three pages, I reconstructed the main events since 2001.

🔹 I spoke about my whistleblowing report.

🔹 I spoke about the book “Eni: Lo Stato parallelo”.

🔹 I spoke about the questions presented at the 2017 AGM.

🔹 I spoke about the mediation proposal made by Mauro Meggiolaro at the 2018 AGM.

🔹 I spoke about Eni’s lawsuit and the decision of the Rome Court of Appeal.

And I ended that long message with an extraordinarily simple question:

🔴 “Please, can you help me?”

After almost two decades, I was not asking a new Chairwoman simply to believe my version of the story.

🔹 I was providing documents.

🔹 I was pointing to court decisions.

🔹 I was highlighting questions that remained unanswered.

🔹 And I was giving Eni’s new leadership an opportunity to examine the Flinto Case before reaching its own conclusion.

A few weeks later, Lucia Calvosa would become Chairwoman of Eni’s Board of Directors.

And the Flinto Case would once again reach the company’s Annual General Meeting.

For the third time!

That will be the next part of this story.


❎ Learn more:

1️⃣ Email sent to Lucia Calvosa (April 19, 2020)

2️⃣ Memorial (1999–2025)

3️⃣ Chronology of Facts for the Reconstruction of Events

Ep72 - 2019: The Court-referred mediation

Yesterday, I showed what happened on October 16, 2019.

The Rome Court of Appeal rejected Eni’s appeal in the first lawsuit brought against me and the Brazilian Institute of Business Ethics (Instituto Brasileiro de Ética nos Negócios).

🔹 First instance: lawsuit rejected.

🔹 Second instance: Eni’s appeal rejected.

Just 13 days later, something particularly significant happened.

📌 October 29, 2019.

The word “mediation” reappeared in the history of the Flinto Case.

But this time, it was not during a Shareholders’ Meeting.

It was within the Italian judicial system itself.

On that day, a hearing was held before Judge Antonella Di Tullio of the Ordinary Court of Rome, in the context of the second lawsuit brought against me.

Represented in the proceedings were Eni S.p.A., Marco Petracchini (then-Chief Audit Officer), Massimo Mantovani (then-Chief Legal Officer), Douglas Linares Flinto, and the Brazilian Institute of Business Ethics.

The Judge then recorded:

🔹 “Having noted that mediation proceedings had not been initiated, the Judge invites the parties to proceed with mediation”.

The hearing was adjourned to June 23, 2020.

For the second time in less than two years, therefore, a concrete opportunity emerged to bring the parties to the mediation table.

The first had arisen on May 10, 2018, during Eni’s Annual General Meeting.

Critical shareholder Mauro Meggiolaro, representing Fondazione Finanza Etica, publicly offered to mediate the conflict.

The meeting never took place due to a lack of interest from the Italian oil giant.

Now it was different.

📌 The possibility of mediation was emerging within the judicial proceedings themselves.

After years of letters, complaints and lawsuits, there was once again an opportunity to try another path:

🔹 Bring the parties face to face.

🔹 Bring the different versions face to face.

🔹 Bring the documents face to face.

And this time, there is another document.

A document recording what happened when the mediation proceedings actually reached the Organismo di Mediazione Forense di Roma - the Rome Bar Association Mediation Body.

📌 July 1, 2020.

The document expressly states:

🔴 “DELEGATA DAL GIUDICE” — “COURT-REFERRED MEDIATION”.

What happened during that mediation?

Was there a willingness to discuss the Flinto Case and seek a solution?

That will be another document in this story.


❎ Learn more:

1️⃣ Minutes of the hearing before the Ordinary Court of Rome (Oct 29, 2019):
🔹 original
🔹 English

2️⃣ Memorial (1999–2025)

3️⃣ Chronology of Facts for the Reconstruction of Events

Ep71 - Eni appealed. The Court rejected it!

Yesterday, I showed that, in May 2018, an alternative to judicial confrontation was publicly proposed during Eni’s Annual General Meeting:🔹 Mediation, proposed by critical shareholder Mauro Meggiolaro, representing Fondazione Finanza Etica.

The meeting never took place due to a lack of interest from the Italian oil giant.

So, the legal dispute continued.

📌 October 16, 2019.

The Rome Court of Appeal ruled on Eni’s appeal in the first lawsuit brought against me and the Brazilian Institute of Business Ethics.

Five years earlier, the Civil Court of Rome had rejected Eni’s lawsuit, in which the company initially sought €15 million in damages.

Eni appealed and reduced its claim to €5 million - coincidentally, the same amount as the unsuccessful 2015 proposal for an amicable settlement.

The Court recorded:

🔹 “The appellant now reduces its claim for damages to an amount equal to one-third of that originally sought...”

One-third of the original amount.

But the central issue remained:

🔹 “...however, the failure to allege consequential damage persists.”

In other words, Eni still failed to demonstrate the concrete consequences of the damage it claimed to have suffered.

The Court went further.

Eni had not provided evidence demonstrating that its institutional interlocutors had actually become aware of the communications and that its image had consequently suffered appreciable harm.

Nor had Eni alleged that any business deal or commercial relationship had been prevented or even hindered.

The conclusion was clear:

📌 “For these reasons, the appeal must be rejected”.

And in the operative part:

🔹 “The appeal is rejected”.

The Rome Court of Appeal rejected Enzo Di Giulio’s appeal.

Eni was also ordered to reimburse €10,000 in legal costs, plus the charges specified in the judgment.

Thus:

🔹 First instance: lawsuit rejected.

🔹 Second instance: Eni’s appeal rejected.

This does not mean that the Italian courts declared my allegations against Eni to be true.

That is not what the Court decided.

What the documents show is specific: Eni sought €15 million - later reduced to €5 million - but failed to demonstrate the concrete consequences of the alleged damage as required by the Italian courts.

This raises an inevitable question:

🔴 What was the nature of a €15 million lawsuit against a whistleblower and an organization dedicated to Business Ethics when the alleged damage could not be demonstrated?

A SLAPP - Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation?

Just one week later, mediation would reappear in this story - this time within the Italian judicial system itself.

That will be the next document in this story.


❎ Learn more:

1️⃣ Rome Court of Appeal Judgment (Oct 16, 2019):
🔹 original
🔹 English

2️⃣ Chronology of Facts for the Reconstruction of Events

Ep70 - A public proposal for mediation

Last week, we reached September 2017, when Eni initiated a second legal action against me, while the first was still under appeal.

A few months later, an alternative to judicial confrontation emerged.

📌 A public proposal for mediation.

On May 10, 2018, during Eni’s Annual General Meeting (AGM), critical shareholder Mauro Meggiolaro, representing Fondazione Finanza Etica, once again brought the Flinto Case to the company’s attention.

But this time, he did not submit questions before the AGM.

He proposed a concrete solution at the microphone, before the members of Eni’s Board, including Chairwoman Emma Marcegaglia and CEO Claudio Descalzi:

🔹 “...we wanted to offer ourselves as mediators between Douglas Linares Flinto and the company, in an attempt to resolve this conflict”.

The proposal was recorded in the official minutes of Eni’s 2018 Annual General Meeting.

Meggiolaro added another statement that I consider particularly significant:

🔹 “...we can instead talk about concrete facts, we would be happy to do so”.

Talking about concrete facts.

That is exactly what I have been asking for over the past 25 years.

Not for anyone simply to believe my version.

Examine the facts. Examine the documents.

In 2018, therefore, an alternative was publicly placed on the table.

It was not another complaint.

It was not another lawsuit.

It was dialogue.

A third party was offering to bring Eni and Douglas Linares Flinto together to examine the facts and try to resolve a conflict that had already lasted for years.

And all of this happened inside Eni’s own Annual General Meeting.

Mediation could have brought deeply conflicting documents and versions of the Flinto Case face to face.

However, the mediation meeting proposed by the critical shareholder never took place.

The following year, another decisive event would occur.

📌 October 16, 2019.

The Rome Court of Appeal would rule on the appeal in the first lawsuit brought by Eni against me and the Brazilian Institute of Business Ethics (Instituto Brasileiro de Ética nos Negócios).

That will be the next document in this story.

❎ Learn more:

1️⃣ Minutes of Eni’s 2018 Annual General Meeting 

2️⃣ Memorial (1999–2025)

3️⃣ Chronology of Facts for the Reconstruction of Events