Society Gists

In the past six years, Italian-Nigerian billionaire, Gabriele Volpi, and his son, Matteo, have been locked in an unusual, bitter, multi-jurisdictional and protracted legal battle that has torn the family apart and left members sweltering in exceptional acrimony.

Father and son are known to feud, but this contest between Mr Volpi and his first child, being reported for the first time by PREMIUM TIMES, is a rare kind that has shocked judges and damaged the paternal bond between the two men while continuing to rage across court and arbitration rooms in Nigeria, Bahamas, United Kingdom and Malta. As things stand, the two combatants are not shifting ground, and they appear committed to continuing to fight until either side drops dead, surrenders or is crushed.

Mr Volpi, 80, moved from Italy to Nigeria in 1976. By 1978, his Noli International Shipping Services Limited had owned 50 medium and long-term charter boats and 11 ships of a combined 6,000 containers capacity. In 1982, he founded Nigeria Container and Oil Terminal (NICOTES) with Italian oil firm AGIP, which was developing its first offshore facility at the time, being its first client. In 1995, the businessman founded Integrated Logistics Services Limited (INTELS), which is his fattest cash cow so far. It was with Intels, which he once co-owned with former Nigerian Vice President Atiku Abubakar, that he stamped his feet as the number one oil and gas logistics man in Nigeria and West Africa. However, he is regularly described as a leader of the Italian mafia in the country along with his friends Gian Angelo Perucci, Domenico Gitto, Primo Bianchi and Gianfranco Falcioni, all well-established and wealthy businessmen.

Mr Volpi, a naturalised Nigerian, has now been in Nigeria for 47 years, becoming one of the country’s most successful businesspersons, with tentacles in key sectors of the economy – oil and gas, logistics, real estate, shipping, hospitality and sports. He has amassed a huge fortune through his several businesses and is clearly one of the wealthiest entrepreneurs in the country. His associates and court papers say he is worth billions of dollars.

The magnate’s two sons, Matteo and Simone, worked in his businesses in several capacities for many years, and the four-member nuclear family was indeed happy. But that was until 2016 when Mr Volpi’s relationship with his wife, Rosaria Volpi (nee Rota), first deteriorated and then disintegrated, a development that immediately plunged the family into chaos. Matteo, 54, told a court in Malta that his mother divorced his father in May 2017 after realising in August or September 2016 that Mr Volpi was engaged in an extramarital affair for at least ten years. In the same 2017, the businessman settled a matrimonial claim by Rosaria by giving her a package of assets and cash worth $100 million, out of which Rosaria gave Simone and Matteo $20 million each, court papers say.