Eni & Me: This is us!

The Code of Ethics transforms the employee into a whistleblower. But, depending on the company, and Eni is part of this unethical group, the whistleblower is fired in retaliation! After the dismissal, the whistleblower is turned into a villain! The company throws their reputation in the trash, puts an end to their career and chases the whistleblower until they manage to destroy their life and family.

This is Eni's Way!

Eni vs Petrobras: What do they have in common?

Many are the points in common between the Italian oil giant Eni and the Brazilian oil giant Petrobras.

1) Both are the largest companies in their countries;
2) The Italian and Brazilian government are the main shareholders in each of them with approximately 30% of the shares;
3) Most Directors of the Board are indicated by the government, ie, "politically indicated";
4) The CEOs are placed in their functions indicated by the Prime Minister, in the case of Italy, and by the President of the Republic, in the case of Brazil;
5) The companies management is far from being "independent" as it happens in the private companies. The governments have a complete interference.

However, Eni and Petrobras are different in two things, nowadays:

a) The current CEO is not a defendant in a criminal lawsuit (International Corruption);
b) The current CEO's wife did not receive $ 300 million from the company (Conflict of Interest);

Even so, the government confirmed another 3-year term for a #CEO accused of #corruption.

In fact, in a private company with values, honesty, integrity and ethics this situation would never happen!

Viva l'Italia!!!

Eni does it again!

The Italian oil giant does it again!

Eni will pay a fine worth of $ 24 million to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

This is Eni's Way!

Note: Read more about this subject.

A CEO accused of corruption... A Corrupt Company!

"Alarm raised as the Italian government has decided the best person to continue to lead the country's biggest multinational is Claudio Descalzi - on trial for serious corruption allegations"

by Barnaby Pace (Global Witness)

A CEO accused of corruption ... A Corrupt Company! Viva l'Italia!

This is Eni's Way!

Read more about this subject.

Eni doesn't respect anyone!

Out of respect for the pain and suffering of the Italian people because of the COVID-19 pandemic, I had committed myself not to post anything about Eni until this was all over.

However, the Italian giant doesn’t respect anyone!

Even knowing that it won’t be successful in the 3rd instance of the Italian justice, it appealed the sentence of (unfounded) lawsuit that the company has filed against me in 2010 just to save time.

Besides, it is a great lack of respect for the Italian people the Conte government confirming the third term of the current CEO of Eni, even though he is a defendant in an international corruption case in Milan - for the payment of the “Bribery of the Century” in Nigeria, a total amount of US$1.1 billion - in addition to the “conflict on interest” because of the illicit gain of his wife’s company, that received US$300 million from Eni, as well as the fine imposed by EUA’s SAC in April 2020 because of the corruption of Saipem in Algeria.

Therefore, I will again report on Eni’s corrupt and unethical management. I apologize to the suffering Italian people for this.

The Marketing of Ethics

“Social Responsibility, Corporate Governance and Codes of Ethics are topics that are each day becoming more common within the corporate world. But these topics are only becoming common in the speech of the companies. There is a "black box" called corporate corruption and we have very few information about it. The press and the public opinion are very interested when the theme is corruption in the public sphere. This dedication is nonexistent when it comes to private relations. This way, a company can build a responsibility marketing while keeping under the rug possible transgressions.

Because of this, important themes can be transformed into a "marketing slogan". This seems to be what happened regarding your dismissal. It is still a positive thing that the company fired the people involved in the facts gathered by you. But a doubt will remain: how far did the branches of the corruption scheme that you helped identify go?

This is a very hard question to face today in the corporate world: what to do when the internal channels of the company punish the professionals that denounce deviations? Maybe the path is indeed going to Court. In your case, I believe that this clearly constitutes an unfair dismissal that deserves to be taken to Court, seeking judicial redress and indemnity.

Note that this is not just a personal matter. By taking this to Court, besides fighting for your rights, you will publicly expose what the company tried to hide by firing you. The company will be publicly identified as an "Ethics’ Marketing Company". This kind of action is important to serve as an example and to help showing that Ethics cannot be restricted to a speech. But that there are legal and, perhaps, even criminal consequences.

The difficult thing is to asses the impact of such an action on your professional and personal life. The fight can be somewhat idealist, because there is no guarantee that the "black box" of corporate corruption doesn’t make you a vetoed professional in the market. It is a risk. Of course, there are millions of companies that act with responsibility. And we still don’t know what will be the impact of transparency in the corporate world. If cases like yours begin to be taken to Court, it is possible that transparency will also reach all companies more quickly.”


Despite being written in the early 2000's, this article illustrates well my "Ethical Clash" with the Italian oil giant Eni - this year it will complete 19 long years - and it is also the battle of many #whistleblowers around the world against companies that don't respect their Code of Ethics, that has employees and executives who steal from the corporate coffers and against the Boards that pretend nothing happens!


Note: This article was written by Mr. Simon Franco when he was a columnist of the section "Career and You" and published in one of the most important magazine of Brazilian economy and business, as an answer to my message narrating my story with Italian oil giant Eni.