Timeline: Nigeria's OPL 245 oilfield licence bribery cases

FILE PHOTO: The Royal Dutch Shell logo is seen at a Shell petrol station in London, January 31, 2008. REUTERS/Toby Melville

LONDON (Reuters) - An Italian court acquitted Royal Dutch Shell and Italy's Eni on Wednesday of corruption in one of the oil industry's biggest court cases centred around the acquisition of a Nigerian oilfield in 2011.

Italian prosecutors alleged that most of the $1.3 billion purchase price for the licence for the offshore oilfield known as OPL 245 was siphoned off to politicians and middlemen.