Ep83 - Three questions. One more answer!

In the previous episode, I showed that, at Eni’s AGM on May 12, 2021, Mauro Meggiolaro, representing Fondazione Finanza Etica, submitted three questions on my behalf regarding the amicable settlement proposal sent on December 18, 2020.

The AGM’s official document stated:

📌 "On December 18th, 2020, Mr. Douglas Linares Flinto’s lawyer sent a ‘Proposal for Amicable Settlement’ to Eni’s lawyer, as requested by Eni”.

The wording is clear:

🔹 “as requested by Eni”.

As shown in previous episodes, the proposal came after the then-Italian Ambassador to Brazil, Francesco Azzarello, informed me that, following the Embassy’s contact with the company, Eni was waiting for an amicable settlement proposal.

The proposal was submitted to Eni’s external lawyer.

120 days later, I was still waiting for an answer.

I wrote to the Board asking whether it had been received and when we could discuss it.

I received no direct response.

Then the matter reached the AGM.

The three questions essentially asked:

📌 Why, after requesting and receiving an amicable settlement proposal, had Eni still not responded?

The company could accept it, reject it or make a counterproposal.

But what was Eni’s response to the proposal it had requested?

To the first two questions, Eni simply replied:

🔹“See answer 11.3.”

Thus, three questions converged into one answer.

📌 ENI’S ANSWER

Eni stated that the proposal concerned ongoing legal proceedings between the parties and the case I had submitted to the Brazilian National Contact Point for the OECD - OCDE Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises.

Therefore, Eni considered the AGM not the appropriate forum to address those matters again.

But the central question remained unanswered:

📌 What happened to the amicable settlement proposal Eni had requested?

There was also an important documentary detail.

The questions stated:

🔹 “as requested by Eni".

In its answer, however, Eni referred simply to Mr. Flinto’s “proposal for amicable settlement”, without mentioning that, according to the previous page, it had been submitted at Eni’s request.

Someone reading only the answer could therefore have the impression that I had submitted the settlement proposal on my own initiative.

But the documented sequence was different:

🔹 Eni was waiting for an amicable settlement proposal.

The proposal was submitted.

120 days later, I asked for an answer.

And at the AGM, Eni’s response did not clarify what had happened to that proposal.

After almost 20 years, the fundamental question remained:

🔴 Why not submit the facts, documents and different versions regarding my dismissal to a truly independent investigation?

I am not asking anyone to believe me.

I am asking them to compare the documents before reaching an independent conclusion.

📌 TOMORROW: 13 YEARS OF QUESTIONS. AN “EVASIVE” APPROACH?


❎ Learn more:

1️⃣ Questions and Answers before Eni’s 2021 AGM

Ep82 - The Flinto Case returns to Eni's AGM

In the previous episode, I showed that, on April 19, 2021, 120 days after the amicable settlement proposal was submitted, I wrote again to Eni’s Board of Directors.

My question was simple:

🔹 Had the Board received the proposal?

🔹And, if so, when could we discuss the possibility of bringing to an end a story that would turn 20 years old that year?

I received no direct response.

A few weeks later, however, the Flinto Case would return to one of the company’s most important institutional forums.

📌 May 12, 2021.

At Eni’s Annual General Meeting, Mauro Meggiolaro, acting as a critical shareholder and representing Fondazione Finanza Etica, officially submitted three questions on my behalf.

It was the fourth time the Flinto Case had reached Eni’s AGM - after 2017, 2018 and 2020.

This time, the subject was clearly identified in the company’s official document:

🔹 "Amicable Settlement Proposal Submitted by Douglas Linares Flinto”.

The AGM document itself recorded the context.

On December 18, 2020, my lawyer had sent Eni’s lawyer a “Proposal for Amicable Settlement”.

And the text submitted to the AGM contained a fundamental piece of information:

🔹 the proposal had been submitted “as requested by Eni”.

It also recorded that, after 120 days without being contacted by the company, I had written again to the Board on April 19, 2021, asking whether the proposal had been received and when it would be possible to discuss a resolution of the case.

Then came the three questions.

QUESTION 1
Why did Eni ask Douglas Linares Flinto for a “Proposal for Amicable Settlement”?

QUESTION 2
If, in an attempt to reach an amicable settlement, the party requesting a proposal may accept it or respond with a counterproposal, why had Eni still not contacted me after receiving my proposal?

QUESTION 3
When did Eni plan to respond to my amicable settlement proposal?

Three questions.

📌 All concerning a proposal that, according to the document submitted to the AGM itself, had been sent at Eni’s request.

But there was an even larger question behind them.

After almost 20 years, I was still seeking what I had repeatedly requested from the beginning:

🔴 that the facts, the documents and the different versions presented regarding my dismissal be effectively examined.

The 2021 AGM offered Eni another opportunity to publicly explain its position.

How did the company answer the three questions?

That is what we will see in the next episode.

Tomorrow:

📌 THREE QUESTIONS. ONE MORE ANSWER.

After 25 years, my request remains the same:

🔴 that Eni allow a truly independent investigation into the Flinto Case - examining the facts, the documents and the different versions presented by the company itself over the years.

I am not asking anyone to believe me.

I am asking them to examine the documents before reaching an independent conclusion.


❎ Learn more:

1️⃣ Questions and Answers before Eni’s 2021 AGM

Ep81 - 120 days... No answer!

In the previous episode, I showed that, on December 18, 2020, a proposal for an amicable settlement of the Flinto Case was formally submitted.

€5.5 million.

But the amount was only part of a much broader document.

The proposal reconstructed almost twenty years of the Flinto Case and incorporated new internal documents produced by Agip Brasil and the Italian Agip/Eni structure, held by Petrobras after it acquired Agip Brasil’s assets and obtained by me under Brazil’s Access to Information Law.

The documents were on the table.

So was the proposal.

Then the waiting began.

📌 April 19, 2021.

Exactly 120 days had passed since the proposal was submitted.

I was still waiting for an answer.

So I wrote directly to the then-Chairwoman of Eni’s Board, copying the other Board members, including CEO Claudio Descalzi.

I began by recalling that 120 days had passed since the proposal was submitted.

The email also recorded that the proposal had been submitted to Eni’s external lawyer after the then-Italian Ambassador to Brazil, Francesco Azzarello, had informed me that Eni was waiting for an amicable settlement proposal.

My purpose was simple.

I wanted to know two things:

🔹 Had Eni’s Board received my proposal?

And:

🔹When could we discuss bringing the Flinto Case to an end?

This is exactly what I wrote:

📌 “The purpose of this e-mail is to confirm whether the Board of Eni has received my Proposal for Amicable Settlement, and also to find out when we can discuss the possibility of putting an end on this story that, in August 2021, will complete 20 long years.”

I was not submitting a new complaint or presenting a new proposal.

I was asking whether the Board had received the proposal submitted 120 days earlier - and when we could discuss it.

There was another significant coincidence.

Exactly one year earlier, on Apr 19, 2020, I had written to Lucia Calvosa when she had been nominated to become Chairwoman of Eni’s new Board.

I presented the Flinto Case and provided documents so that the new corporate governance could know my version of the facts before reaching its own conclusion.

Now, on Apr 19, 2021, I was returning to the same Board.

A year had passed.

The proposal had been submitted.

The new documents were available.

And the Flinto Case was approaching its 20th anniversary.

But the central question remained:

🔴 Why not submit the Flinto Case - the facts, the documents and the different versions presented regarding my dismissal - to a truly independent investigation?

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

🔹 For the fourth time.

I am not asking anyone to believe me.

I am asking them to examine the documents before reaching an independent conclusion.

📌 NEXT EPISODE: THE FLINTO CASE RETURNS TO ENI’S AGM. FOR THE FOURTH TIME.


❎ Learn more:

1️⃣ Email to Eni’s Board - Apr19, 2021

Ep80 - The €5.5 million settlement proposal

In the previous episode, I explained how, in November 2020, Italian diplomacy entered the Flinto Case.

After the Italian Embassy in Brazil contacted Eni, then-Ambassador Francesco Azzarello told me that Eni was waiting for a proposal for an amicable settlement.

A few weeks later, that proposal would be submitted.

But first, something important happened.

📌 November 26, 2020.

I received from Petrobras documents obtained under Brazil’s Access to Information Law, following determinations by Brazil’s Office of the Comptroller General - CGU.

Petrobras had acquired Agip Brasil’s assets in 2004 and held documents from Eni’s former Brazilian subsidiary.

Among them were four records produced by Agip Brasil and the Italian Agip/Eni structure in 2001 and 2002:

🔹 1. The Internal Audit Report dated July 26, 2001, produced after my whistleblowing report and only six days before my dismissal.

🔹 2. A fax dated October 3, 2002, sent by Agip Petroli in Italy to the President of Agip Brasil, forwarding my complaint to Eni’s Board and requesting further investigation.

🔹 3. A memorandum dated October 7, 2002, signed by two Agip Brasil executives, presenting the “circumstances” of my dismissal in response to inquiries from Italy.

🔹 4. A memorandum dated February 7, 2002, produced by the then-head of Internal Audit only six days after I appealed to the company’s Ethics Committee.

These documents were extremely significant.

They allowed me to compare the company’s internal records with the “three versions” presented over the years regarding my dismissal - including information published in Eni’s official "Questions and Answers before the 2017 Shareholders’ Meeting".

Then came:

📌 December 18, 2020.

Four days after my 57th birthday and exactly one week before Christmas, my lawyer formally submitted to Eni a proposal for an amicable settlement.

The document stated that the case first needed to be reconstructed in light of the “new and important documentation” I had obtained.

It reconstructed the Flinto Case chronologically, beginning with the events of 2001 and drawing on dozens of documents, witness statements and other evidence.

At the end came the financial proposal:

€5.5 MILLION.

After almost twenty years, this was an opportunity to examine the dispute in light of evidence that now included internal records I did not possess when everything began.

But something was more important than the amount:

The documents were on the table.

And the same question remained:

🔴 Why not submit the Flinto Case - the facts, the documents and the different versions presented regarding my dismissal - to a truly independent investigation?

I am not asking anyone to believe me.

I am asking them to examine the documents before reaching an independent conclusion.

📌 NEXT EPISODE: 120 DAYS. NO ANSWER.


❎ Learn more:

1️⃣ Amicable Settlement Proposal:
🔹 Original DOC
🔹 English

Ep79 - Eni was waiting for a settlement proposal

In the previous episode, I showed how Italian diplomacy entered the Flinto Case.

After my message was forwarded to the head of the Italian Foreign Ministry, his then Chief of Staff, Ettore Sequi, referred the Flinto Case to the Italian Embassy in Brazil.

On November 10, 2020, Carlo Jacobucci, Economic Counsellor in Brazil, wrote on behalf of the then Ambassador Francesco Azzarello:

🔹 “We will contact Eni regarding the matter and, as soon as we receive a response, we will contact you”.

The Embassy therefore informed me that it would contact Eni.

Just over two weeks later, something happened.

📌 November 26, 2020.

I spoke with Ambassador Francesco Azzarello.

During that conversation, he informed me that he could not take the Flinto Case to the Italian Prime Minister, as doing so was outside the scope of his role.

But there was something else.

And it could change the course of this story.

According to what Ambassador Azzarello told me following the Embassy’s contact with the company:

🔴 Eni was waiting for a proposal for an amicable settlement.

After almost two decades of conflict, that information had a special significance for me.

🔹 In 2015, following the first decision of the Civil Court of Rome, my lawyers had already sought an amicable settlement.

🔹 In 2018, during Eni’s Annual General Meeting, critical shareholder Mauro Meggiolaro, representing Fondazione Finanza Etica, had publicly offered to mediate an attempt to resolve the dispute between the parties.

The meeting never took place.

🔹 In 2020, a court-referred mediation in Rome had also ended without an agreement.

But now there was a new element:

🔹 according to the information conveyed to me by the Italian Ambassador to Brazil, Eni was waiting for an amicable settlement proposal.

I decided to submit one.

📌 December 18, 2020.

Through my Italian lawyer, a proposal would be formally submitted.

And then a new wait would begin.

25 years later, my request remains the same:

🔴 That Eni allow a truly independent investigation into the Flinto Case, examining the facts, the documents, and the different versions of my dismissal presented by the company itself over all these years.

I am not asking anyone to believe me. I am asking them to examine the documents before reaching an independent conclusion.

📌 NEXT EPISODE:

THE SETTLEMENT PROPOSAL.


❎ Learn more:

1️⃣ Correspondence with the Italian Embassy in Brazil (November 2020):
🔹 Original in Portuguese
🔹 English Translation

2️⃣ Memorial — The Flinto Case

3️⃣ Chronology of Facts for the Reconstruction of Events