Seven Banks Under Investigation In Parmalat Probe

by Ulrika Lomas, for LawAndTax-News.com, Brussels

13 February 2004

It emerged this week that five international banks and two Italian institutions have been placed under investigation in connection with the financial dealings and eventual collapse of Italian dairy firm, Parmalat.

According to reports, Bank of America, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, and UBS have all been included in the probe, in addition to the Banca Popolare di Lodi and Nextra, which is the fund management unit of Banca Intesa.

Speaking to Reuters, an unnamed senior judicial source refused to confirm that all seven banks were under investigation, although he suggested that it was probable that some of the reported names were part of the probe.

Also speaking to the news agency this week, UBS chief executive, Peter Wuffli revealed that the bank had no knowledge of Parmalat's financial woes prior to its collapse, explaining that:

"In hindsight it's always easy, but if you looked at Parmalat just a few months ago it was a decent milk company. It did not look like a junk company at all."

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