Piero Amara

Piero Armara is a lawyer from Siracusa, Sicily, who acted as external legal counsel for Eni managers and employees between 2002 and February 2018, according to Eni.

Amara, together with Giancarlo Longo, public prosecutor in Siracusa, were sentenced to jail in February 2020 for having corrupted the justice system on several occasions. Piero Amara is also indicted for having fabricated a fake investigation to undermine the Milan investigation into the OPL 245 deal. The investigation has been dubbed “the conspiracy”.

Amara and Longo tried to start a trial in Trani or Siracusa using anonymous complaints falsely alleging that two Eni board members, together with a manager at one of Eni’s subsidiaries, Nigerian intelligence agents, and a group of lawyers, were plotting to remove Claudio Descalzi by discrediting him.

Amara and Longo’s scheme was exposed by police: and prosecutors in Milan, Rome, and Messina launched their own investigations exposing a 30,000 euro bribe paid to Longo.

Amara has insisted that he was operating under the direction of Claudio Granata, Eni’s then director of human resources, who in turn was said to have acted under the direction of Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi. Eni replied to our questions denying Amara’s claims and adding that there have been no meetings between Granata and Amara: “We recall that Piero Amara has been denounced for years by Eni and his manager, including Claudio Granata, for the slanderous statements made in several areas of investigation. Eni and his managers have been waiting for some time for the results of the investigations against Amara and will assert their reasons as offended parties in the courts of jurisdiction. In the meantime, as is known, Eni has filed a civil suit against Piero Amara since July 2019 for damage to its reputation, a lawsuit that is still ongoing”.

In January 2020, Milan magistrates issued a search warrant against several Eni executives, including Claudio Granata. The investigation is still ongoing, pending a decision about whether to bring charges against Eni’s managers.

A secret video recorded by Piero Amara on 28 July 2014 has also proved controversial. The video records Vincenzo Armanna, a former Eni manager who was one of the defendants in the OPL 245 trial, as saying that he intended to unleash an “avalanche of shit”. The Prosecutor alleged that this referred to an intention to release a series of articles exposing Eni. The judges, by contrast, took the view that Armanna intended to make false declarations to the prosecution.