Italian prosecutors have formally notified 14 officials of eight international and local banks that they are under investigation in the €14,3-billion collapse of the dairy group Parmalat, the daily La Repubblica reported on Tuesday.
Formal notification is the first step in a judicial process leading to charges being laid.
The newspaper, which did not disclose its sources, said the banks had taken part in bond issues between July and September last year, when Parmalat’s financial situation was already precarious.
La Repubblica published a list of the officials, who it said were suspected of helping the management of Parmalat to manipulate the stock market instead of telling investors what they knew about the group’s finances.
Four of the people under investigation worked for Deutsche Bank, La Repubblica said.
Others worked for Nextra, a subsidiary of Italy’s leading bank Intesa, and Banca Popolare di Lodi, as well as for Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, JP Morgan, Banco Santander of Spain and UBS of Switzerland, it said.
The Turin daily La Stampa published a similar list, which included Citicorp but omitted Bank of America.
According to the daily Corriere della Sera, Deutsche Bank also helped Parmalat management to draft replies for Standard and Poor’s when the international ratings agency began to investigate the group.
Corriere della Sera said Parmalat’s founder Calisto Tanzi, one of 28 people under investigation in the scandal, had given prosecutors the names of 30 Italian politicians who are allegedly involved.
The newspaper said the prosecutors remained tight-lipped about the politicians’ identities. — Sapa-AFP